


may he never sit on the throne i built him

by cooperandcrown



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Betty deserves all the hugs and kisses in the world, Comfort/Angst, Drug Use, F/M, Gladys is the baddest bitch, Heavy Angst, Honestly this is the Sons of Anarchy AU no one asked for, I don't want you to be shocked when it comes up, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jughead will kill a man. Several of them. At the same time., Murder, Recreational Drug Use, Southside Serpent Jughead Jones, This is FULLLL SOUTHSIDE, bughead - Freeform, if you've seen the show you'll understand, nothing too hard out but I want to warn you, southside serpents, these guys aren't kids i'm tellin ya!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25547464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooperandcrown/pseuds/cooperandcrown
Summary: Betty slips the kutte on to Jughead's arms, moving it up onto his shoulders. They pause for a single heart beat before he crashes his lips onto hers. Running his fingers up her neck, into her hair. Holding all of her tight.Love, she thinks. This is love. Pure and true. That’s all she feels in her heart. His love all mixed up with hers.She feels it when he clings onto her tighter. When she feels all of his heart and soul in her skin.She’s in love with the Serpent. He’s not just a man. He’s the very snake that’s on his kutte.He’s the Serpent and she’s Eve. The sin is worth it.- or; the rise and fall of Jughead Jones and the Southside Serpents
Relationships: Archie Andrews & Veronica Lodge, Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Varchie - Relationship, bughead
Comments: 29
Kudos: 87





	1. Peace

**Author's Note:**

> I've got words. I've written them out. I hope you enjoy them.  
> A thank you to the editor, bettysandjugs, for literally everything.

_**Peace** _

* * *

_ To my children,  _

_ Jellybean, who has already found peace. May she reign the heavens like the Queen she is in my heart.  _

_ And to my son, Jughead, may he never sit on the throne I built him.  _

  
  
  
  


_ … _

The roads leading out of Riverdale are empty. Cool, crisp air flushes his cheeks as he rides through the silent darkness, flickers from the streetlights cutting through his vision as he heads towards Greendale. It was the nights like these that he loves. The silence that brings peace, the darkness that makes everything feel serene. No jolting gun shots, no red running down the drain. Just him, the Harley and the road out to nowhere. 

Slowing down his ride as he approaches a convenience store to pick up some cigarettes before heading to the warehouse, he slows to a stop before backing up the bike against the footpath. 

Jughead Jones saunters into the convenience store, fingers brushing along packets of chips, landing on a bottle of Pepsi that he grabs, swinging it at his side as he makes his way to the counter, placing it down in front of him. He plucks a packet of condoms off the rack and adds them next to the Pepsi. “Hey Midge,” he says, showing her a smile. “A packet of Marlboro’s too please, darlin’.”

He watches Midge run her eyes over his kutte settling on his  _ ‘Vice President’ _ badge on the left of his chest. “You know,” she starts, picking up the condoms and waving them in the air. “It’d be cheaper if you bought a carton of these…” 

Jughead chuckles, running his tongue over his teeth. “Keeps me humble buying them this way,” he replies, pulling his kutte tighter across his chest. 

Midge rings up the items before putting them in a bag for him, her smile a little brighter and her eyes looking a little heavier. Before she can say anything else, there’s a loud bang in the distance and her eyes widen as she looks out the window. “What the fuck is that?!” she says with her mouth falling open. 

Jughead looks behind him, dropping his wallet on the ground as he sees the night light up, flames reaching into the sky. It only takes him a second to realise where the flames are coming from, on the border of Riverdale and Greendale, the amount of noise coming from the explosive flames tells him even more. Ammunition, all on fire.  _ “FUCK!” _ he shouts. 

Scrambling to the floor for his wallet, he runs out the door, leaving his items behind. 

The Southside Serpents warehouse with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of guns was up in smoke, and the Prince had to do something about it. 

* * *

After racing out to the warehouse the night before, there was no way he could have approached it, having to leave it to burn to the ground. Explaining to his President what he saw wasn’t easy, especially when said  _ Pres _ has a temper that was similar to the fire that took the warehouse. Huge, daunting and scorching hot. 

Jughead follows closely behind Edgar Evernever, sticking close to his President as they approach the burnt out warehouse. Parking up their bikes, he hears an audible  _ “Shit!” _ from Edgar when he takes his helmet off. 

Looking over the scene, cops are already sorting through the damage, the burnt out firearms cause Jughead to panic until he sees Sheriff Mason. Getting off his bike, he makes his way over to Edgar. “You got the money? Mason’s probably wanting to get paid out for this.” 

Edgar pats his breast pocket. “You know I’m not so slow, son.” They head towards the scene, the smell of burnt out dirt and hot metal burning his nose. 

Sheriff Mason waves them down, standing at the edge of a hole in the dirt with one of his boys in there. “Serpents,” he says, greeting them. “Edgar, Jug.” 

Both Serpents shake the Sheriff's hand. “Moose,” Jughead says, holding on a little longer. “The fuck happened here?” 

Sheriff Mason gives Jughead a sideways glance that Jughead ignores. “Looks to me like someone's stash of guns was set on fire… Propane tanks exploded…” 

“What a horrible accident,” Edgar says with sarcasm in his voice. “Good to see that the guns are not ruining our beloved town.” 

“I totally agree,” Mason adds, sarcasm a little more evident in his tone. “Looks like arson though, so, you might need to do whatever you want with that information.” 

“Arson?” Jughead says quickly.

“Footprints were found around the perimeter,” Mason explains. “So, someone’s out to get your business.” 

“Fucking Ghoulies,” Edgar mumbles in Jughead’s direction. 

“We’ll get to that later,” Jughead replies, placing a hand on Edgar’s shoulder, mind racing with their next plan of attack… and on who. 

Mason sniggers. “That’s the least of your problems, boys,” he says, kicking his foot out in front of the hole in the ground. With both of the Serpents looking down, they notice a trapdoor that would be entrance to the basement of the warehouse. 

Mason’s boy that was down in the hole lifts the trap door. Two forms, charred and blackened sit huddled under the door. “Holy shit!” Jughead says with shock. 

Edgar just rolls his eyes. “Get rid of them for me, Sheriff,” he says flatly. Slapping a wad of money to the Sheriff's chest he turns to walk away.“This is something for your troubles.”

Dust and ash moves and settles as the two Serpents make their way back to their bikes. Jughead takes a cigarette from behind his ear, placing it between his lips and lighting it before taking a deep drag. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the warehouse, Jughead knows that. So who were they and where did they come from? “Hey, Ed,” Jughead says, jogging a few steps to catch up. “Whose bodies were those?” 

Edgar simply shakes his head, stopping at his bike. “You tell me son,” he replies. “Whoever made  _ that _ mess is gonna be killed.”

Jughead grimaces and takes another drag. “I believe that.” 

* * *

Sitting in the club room of the Whyte Wyrm, Jughead looks around at his brothers. Edgar sits at the head of the table, feet lazily up on the arm of the chair next to him and his face leaning on his hand, elbow resting on the edge of the table. To his right is where Jughead sits, eyes scanning the rest of them. To his own right, the seat is empty. He hates that it’s empty, there’s a feeling that he can’t escape. There’s a piece of him missing when Archie doesn’t occupy the chair. They’d known since they were kids that one day, Jughead would rule the Serpents and Archie would be his Vice President. It was a birthright, but Archie had to do right by his family and by Veronica, no matter how much Jughead begged him to come back. To come  _ home _ . 

Archie’s own father sits on the other end of the table. Fred Andrews is wise, but he is an image of his life. He’s not as quick, not as agile and especially not with the gas he has to carry around with him. But his wisdom makes up for all his physical problems, there isn’t anything that Fred Andrews doesn’t know, and Jughead loves him as much as he loves Archie. 

Fangs sits next to Archie’s empty chair, fingers drumming on the table and Jughead silently wishes he could cut Fangs’s drumming fingers off with just a look. Mad Dog looks around, visibly irritated by being here and Reggie’s face is glued to his phone. And Joaquin sits silently brooding.

Edgar looks up and down the table. “Where’s Sweet Pea?” 

Before anyone can answer, Sweet Pea rushes in, taking his seat next to Mad Dog.  _ ‘Sergeant at Arms’ _ badge stuck to his chest that he touches before leaning against the table and looking at the President of the Southside Serpents. “What?” he asks, putting his hands up in the air. “Shoot me, I was late, no big deal…” 

Jughead purses his lips together to hold in a laugh but Edgar doesn’t find it as amusing as the rest of the table does. “Two women burnt to a crisp in the warehouse, who were they?!” The table falls silent except for Mad Dog’s loud snort and Sweet Pea’s involuntary cough. “Well?!”

“Not mine, Boss!” Mad Dog says with a laugh but the sideways glance he gives Sweet Pea gives him away. 

“If they were yours, Mad Dog, you’d better get your ass back to the Toledo charter,” Joaquin sniggers.

Jughead just leans back in his chair. Knowing that Sweet Pea was their loose unit with less than satisfactory tastes in anything he does, he wasn’t surprised to think that the reason there were two women under that trapdoor was due to their Sergeant at Arms. And the look of amusement coming off of Jughead’s cousin led him to believe that he was right. 

Edgar throws his hands in the air. “Tell me the truth, Sweet Pea! Are they your business? Or not?” 

Sweet Pea groans, running a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Ed, I just -” he’s cut off. 

“What were you thinking, man?” Jughead asks, shaking his head. 

“They needed somewhere to crash! I gave them a place…” Sweet Pea says feebly.

Mad Dog grins. “Didn’t want them staying at your actual place?” he teases. 

Edgar raises his eyebrow. “Get rid of them. Tonight. The Sheriff will bring them to your door, Sweet Pea, and you’re gonna have to deal with them!” 

“Got it,” Sweet Pea mumbles. 

“I’ll help you out, man,” Mad Dog offers.

The entire table starts laughing. “I’m sure you will, Mad Dog,” says Jughead. His toughest member also had morals that left a lot to be desired. There was a reason he left the Toledo chapter to come back to Riverdale and it had a lot to do with the tiny smiley face tattoos that were scattered all over his body that represented his body count… and no one could keep up with counting the tattoos. He enjoyed the rush of death a little too much. 

Before Mad Dog can fake shock at Jughead’s comment, there’s a beeping through the Whyte Wyrm coming from outside. Looking out the window into the yard, Jughead shakes his head. “That’s your wife, Ed,” he tells him. 

Edgar looks outside the window too, patting Jughead on the back. “That’s your mother.” 

“JUGHEAD JONES!” Gladys Jones shouts, slamming the door of her pickup. “GET OUT HERE NOW!” 

Jughead shivers at the mere mention of his name, knowing that he’ll regret it if he doesn’t head outside immediately. “I better get out there right now.” he mumbles, heading out the door. 

“Your funeral,” Fangs shouts after him. 

Jughead makes it outside, his mother’s pacing up and down the yard making him unsettled. “What’s going on?!” he asks loudly. “What’s with the beeping?” 

Gladys smiles slyly which unsettles him further. Knowing his mother well, he knows she’s about to unleash. “I popped over to your place, found the junkie passed out on the floor…” 

If there were any other words that came out of his mother’s mouth, he didn’t hear them. All he heard was a static ringing, the pounding of his heart against his rib cage and the sound of his blood pulsing through his veins.

Toni was passed out on the floor which meant his baby was too.

* * *

“She’s detoxing right now. She’ll be okay, your son however…” Betty doesn’t know what to say. Or how. The look on Jughead’s face breaks her just a little. He’s lost. And she knows the look well. It’s the same look he’d give her when they were younger, the same one he gave her when she left ten years ago. It still hurts all the same, especially now that she can see just how much he loves his son without even meeting him yet. 

“Just tell me straight, Betts,” he says almost in a whisper. He tucks his hands into his Serpents kutte in the exact same way he did when he wore it for the first time in front of her when they were teenagers. This time, it fits a little better. He suits it. 

Betty still hates it. 

“Well, we had to do an emergency c-section on Toni, she’ll be out for a while now. Your son though, he has a heart defect and a tear in his abdomen -”

“The family flaw,” Gladys says, nodding. Betty watches her trace a scar on her own chest. 

“The same as Jellybean?” Jughead asks, looking for confirmation from either his mother or Betty. They both just nod. 

Even with the bad news, Jughead is his calm self. It might have been ten years, but a lot of him is exactly the same. His hair is still a dark mess, his fingers still flex in and out while he sorts through his thoughts and questions. She knows him. That hasn’t changed either. 

“What does that mean for the junkie,  _ Doctor Cooper _ ,” Gladys says thickly, eyes raking up and down Betty’s form.

“Toni will be out when she’s recovered from the procedure and well enough to get to rehab. We’re going to have to perform emergency surgery on your son though, Jug,” Betty says slowly, not wanting him to get mixed up in her words. 

He inhales deeply, squeezing his eyes shut, he leans back on the wall of the hospital room. Betty is torn between wanting to hold him, tell him everything is going to be okay and stopping herself, trying to keep everything as professional as possible. 

“And what are the chances of him coming out okay?” Gladys snaps, trying to get as much information as possible. The question, for some reason, annoys Betty. It’s natural to want to know the chances of a positive outcome, but with everything going on, she wants to let Jughead know a little bit at a time. 

“He’s got a twenty percent chance,” Betty tells them honestly, clutching onto her clipboard tighter. “I’m so sorry, Jug.” 

He just nods, running his hand through his hair. Betty feels the energy coming off him, as if she still had this magnetic hold on him, like she could still read him. He’s shattered, there’s not much more to it than that. “I gotta get going,” he says, brushing off the last statement. Both his mother and Betty watch him as if trying to find something in him that’s not there. “Ed’s waiting for me.” 

“Okay baby,” Gladys says, kissing his cheek.

Jughead turns around, this time facing Betty. If ten years had passed in time, it meant nothing now that they’re face to face. He still runs his tongue over his teeth, shuffles from one foot to another before putting his arms around her. “Thank you so much, Betts,” he murmurs. 

Betty hadn’t felt this in a long time. The feeling of Jughead Jones against her, the soft exhale of his breath on her skin. The lost, unspoken words that he could never let go of. The way they seem to just  _ fit _ . She feels it as he pulls away, a kind smile that he leaves behind when he walks away. 

“I better go too, Doc,” Gladys says, already pulling out a cigarette from her handbag that she places between her lips. “You look after my grandson, and you make sure that junkie doesn’t go anywhere near that baby or someone will be paying…” 

Gladys’s heels click through the hospital and Betty stands there, watching her walk away. 

She knows that wasn’t a threat that came out of Gladys’s mouth. It was a promise.

* * *

Considering the circumstances, Toni Topaz didn’t look much different to how Betty remembered her. She still has long hair, pretty lips, and big eyes. She’s just  _ worn _ . And it doesn’t matter how much she tries to give Jughead the benefit of the doubt, she knows Toni is worn from the life he’s built for them. 

Toni lies in her hospital bed, unable to move, still linked up to a monitor to keep an eye on things. She spots Betty in the corner, reading her chart. “Morning, Toni,” Betty says gently. 

She watches tears stream down Toni’s cheeks. “Is he okay?”

Betty’s heart breaks a little. Some for Jughead, a little for Toni, a lot for the baby. Mostly for the absolutely broken woman in front of her. She couldn’t even hold any anger, she lost the hatred towards those who hurt themselves doing wrong early on in her years as a doctor. Now all she feels is sadness. And here she was, in front of a childhood friend who had almost killed herself and her baby, unable to hold any anger. “He’s fine, Toni. Honestly,” she says, making her way to the bed before placing a comforting hand on her arm. “And you’re okay too…” 

“I almost killed him, Betty. I’d be better off dead!” a sob echoes through the room with several more that follow. 

“Don’t say that!” Betty argues. “That’s not true.” She believes it. That baby deserves to have a mother who can at least try to fix things. “I saw you fight to live. Just like your son is. We’ll get you some help.” 

“Jughead hates me… If our baby doesn’t get out of here alive, neither will I.” 

It’s like all the hope that was in the room is sucked out. There’s not a soul left in the room. 

And as much as Betty wishes that what she said isn’t true, she knows it definitely might be. 

She continues working through Toni’s chart, not even speaking a word. 

* * *

There are four bodies in the backseat of the car that Jughead’s parked outside the crematorium that Dr Curdle Jr runs as a side business. Sweet Pea, Mad Dog and two girls burnt to a crisp.

“Come on, Doctor,” Jughead begs. “Let us cremate them and we’ll pay you out. A deals a deal.” 

It doesn’t take much for Dr Curdle Jnr to give in. “You have an hour, Jughead. Then you guys have to go.” He heads back into his office and Jughead nods to his brothers, giving them the all clear. 

Both Sweet Pea and Mad Dog start pulling on the tarpaulin that has the two bodies wrapped up in it. “Can we get a hand?” Sweet Pea asks. 

Jughead remains leaning on the bonnet of the car. “Your mess, you clean it.” 

“Not my mess,” Mad Dog shrugs. 

“Yeah, but you’re the freak that wants to be involved with it.” Jughead replies. 

“Don’t call me a freak, you’re the freak!” 

Sweet Pea pauses, making Mad Dog pause as well while he holds the other end of the wrapped up package. “Can we hurry this along? Or do we have to continue with this family feud?” 

Mad Dog glares at Jughead as they carry on into the room that leads to the crematory. He waits a moment before going in, waiting for them to place the bodies in. 

He smokes a cigarette and checks his messages before heading in, missing out on the flames starting up. Before he can shut the door behind him, he hears a whistle. Turning around, he sees Reggie and Joaquin coming towards them. “What the fuck are you two doing here?” he hisses, looking around for anyone who might have seen them. 

Reggie just grins. “Came to pay our respects…” 

“What are you two really doing here?” he asks, pulling the two of them by the scruff of their necks and dragging them into the room. 

Joaquin answers this time. “Didn’t want to miss out on Sweet Pea saying goodbye to his girlfriends.” 

“You guys are sick,” Jughead says, shaking his head. 

Mad Dog pushes the roller tray further into the fire. “Any words for the fallen?”   


Sweet Pea takes a breath, his solemn expression amuses Jughead, but he knows it’s genuine. “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…” 

Jughead doesn’t hear the rest, instead, he focuses on the flames. 

* * *

The beeping of the hospital machines, the cords and strings, the soft, shallow rise and fall of his son’s chest… it was all too much. 

He didn’t know what to do. Or what to think. He knows that he feels so far away from his own flesh and blood when he’s on the other side of the glass that keeps him away from his son. He knows that his son might not make it. He knows that Toni shouldn’t have made it, but he made her the way she is. He made  _ this _ . 

Every right decision he ever made came off the back of the wrong one. Toni’s addiction was bad and he knew that, so he put her in rehab, but he wasn’t there when she came out. He left Toni and left her the house, but he wasn’t there to watch her. Maybe if he had made more of the right decisions by Toni, his son would be okay. Maybe he’d live. 

Every single decision he made led him straight to this point, he knows that. He chose to stay in the Serpents, he chose Toni because she was exactly like him. Shallow, born into the snake pit. Too reckless and too fearless. He chose a life full of violence, fear, death, aggression. 

And now his son is paying the price for it. 

There’s a rattling in his bones that reminds him exactly what he is. A hissing in the back of his skull. It tells him that his life has his son on life support. That his life is the reason why his eight month pregnant ex decided to put a needle in her favourite vein and pass out on the floor of the house they used to share. 

His life has him standing in the hospital with his son behind glass while he wears his Southside Serpents kutte, wondering what he’s going to do with his life. If his son can still keep his own life. 

A tear falls from Jughead’s eye and rolls down his kutte, another falls and rolls down his cheek. Before he has the chance to wipe them away, he hears someone behind him. 

“Jughead?”

Without looking, he knows the voice. It’s the same one that always talked him down when he was a kid, the same one his heart and soul knew he needed to hear. For the first time in years, he feels at ease. He closes his eyes as if trying to savour the sound of the voice. “Betts,” he says in reply, voice cracking slightly. 

She falls in beside him, neither of them look, but he knows he doesn’t have to. He knows exactly what she looks like. He’d never forget. Even if it had been fifty years in between. “You came home…” he says in a whisper. 

There’s a silence that falls in the corridor that looks into the baby’s room. Finally, she says; “I wanted to come home.” 

“What made you want to come home?”

More silence. “Chicago wasn’t doing it for me anymore.” 

He laughs. He wonders just when she decided that Chicago wasn’t doing it for her. Was it ten years ago when she left him crying for her at the bus stop? Was it when she told him they couldn’t be together anymore because of his life with the Serpents? When she begged him to try university, but he couldn’t leave his family? “I’m sure Chicago is missing you…” 

They fall silent again, this time, they both watch the machines that his son is linked to. “He’s strong, you know. Like you.” 

“You don’t have to do this.” 

“Do what?”

“Look after him. More than you have to. I’m sure there’s other doctors that could do this.” 

Betty’s sighs loudly. “I’m not doing this for you, Jug. I’m doing this for a baby that might have a fighting chance if someone believes in him.” 

She turns to walk away but he catches her hand as it swings back. Spinning her back around, he pulls her in close, bringing her to his chest. 

There was something in their touch that made him recalibrate. Like just having her there grounded him. He can smell her perfume, feel the softness of her skin. Let the feeling of Jughead and Betty being back together in the same room wash over him. 

She pulls her head away but their noses brush, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he knows it feels right. 

But before he can get any closer, her hands move to his kutte, pulling it open, she notices smudged blood on his flannel. “Damn it, Jughead,” she whispers.

She walks away without another word. 

…

  
  
  
  


_ There comes a time when you have to choose your family over your brotherhood and it's confusing when they seem one and the same. Usually, one comes at the expense of the other and you’ll forever be trying to mend all the broken bridges.  _

_ Those you trust end up the ones you hate, those you hate end up the ones you trust. Trusting in your gut and instinct is the main thing, son. Only your own soul knows what it needs to find peace. _

  
  
  
  


_ …. _

  
  
  



	2. Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in 24 hours? That's gotta be a record. I want to thank every single person who's left me love in the form of kudos and comments. You are the real MVP's.

_**Burn** _

* * *

_ The rise of the Southside Serpents came off the back of a rebellion. Too hardened by life to fit back into Riverdale, too distanced from humanity to become part of a community. What we searched for was a brotherhood and the brotherhood became family. As I would kill for my children, you kill for your family too. But when does protecting your family turn into a thirst that is never quenched? A brotherhood becomes an army, standing up for what’s right: but that becomes searching for trouble… A family becomes the most dangerous weapon of all.  _

_ It’s the fuel that starts the fire that never really died in you. The fire and passion to burn everything in your path, no matter what it is, or who it is.  _

_ You don’t care about what’s in front of you burning. All you care about is the fact it needs to burn.  _   
  
  


_ … _

Dust rises and settles as Jughead lifts the roller door of the storage unit that belonged to his mom and dad. Though the unit is cold and dusty, everything he sets his eyes on feels familiar. His father’s old helmets that hang off racks, his jackets - old, damaged kuttes. Items that belonged to Jellybean, her dresses, baby toys. There were ghosts in here, he could feel it. The memories of his father and his sister, and he had just disturbed them. 

Plucking out an old push chair from under a pile of shoe boxes, he puts it to the side. Gladys had sworn there was a bassinet in here too that had belonged to Archie’s daughter, Ellie, that he had asked to dump in the unit. Moving boxes was hard, especially with all the traces of his father around. 

A box falls open, the contents spilling out onto the bench that it sat on. Roughly picking up the contents, he notices photos. Pausing for a moment to light a cigarette, he inhales as he goes through them. 

Photos of him and Jellybean when they were kids. His arm across her shoulders and her big, chubby smile on display. He doesn’t remember much of her, and it was something he battled with everyday. Clinging on to memories. It’s only amplified now that his son was born. It doesn’t help that she survived birth. She only got six years of life before she was taken away by the same condition his son is battling now. 

He tucks it away before the guilt eats him alive, taking another steady drag of his cigarette, flicking the ash into a nearby box. 

The next photo is of his parents wedding. Gladys smiles up at his father, FP next to her, his hand on her swelling stomach. Jughead smiles as he runs his fingers over his father’s form. Twelve years had passed since his dad had died, and now at twenty seven, he’s older than his dad was in the photo. The red head next to Gladys, Mary Andrews, doesn’t look all that much different now. But Jughead’s attention is drawn to the man next to his father. A man who is his father now is his own right. Edgar smiles at the newly wedded couple, his Serpents kutte with the words  _ ‘Vice President’ _ on it, just as he was back then. 

Jughead goes through more photos. Him and Archie when they were kids, past members of the gang, photos of Him, Archie, Betty and Veronica at high school. One photo stands out of him and Betty at Pop’s, hair clinging to her face and chocolate smeared on her apron from work, draped in his arms with his smile against her neck. For a moment, he wishes he were seventeen again. When things were simple and the only problem he had was the grip she had on his heart. He remembers how he constantly felt like he couldn’t breathe when he was around her, but he’d take that feeling over the feeling he has now. Impending doom. He shoves the photo in his pocket, stubbing out his cigarette on the bench. 

He finds another photo, this time of his mom leaning on Edgar at the Whyte Wyrm, the next photo was the day they were married. Jughead sniggers to himself. “Couldn’t even wait two years for dad to be gone, huh?” he chuckles. But Gladys and Edgar had been together for so long now, he couldn’t even remember them apart. 

Putting the photos back into the box, he finally spots the bassinet in the corner. Hiking over the piles of stuff his mother had hoarded over the years, he makes it to the bassinet, wiping cobwebs off and pulling out. Underneath, he finds a box with his father’s scrawl on it.  _ ‘FORSYTHE PENDLETON JONES II’.  _

Grabbing the box, he opens it to find three ring binders. Jughead stares at them for a bit before blowing away dust. Slowly, he runs his fingers down the spine of the first one, drawing it out. 

He opens it warily, noticing it’s full with faded pages and ink smudges in places. The first page reads; 

_ Stories From The Snake Pit - The Fall of the Southside Serpents, by Forsythe Pendleton Jones II.  _

Turning to the next page he reads the words; 

_ To my children,  _

_ Jellybean, who has already found peace. May she reign the heavens like the Queen she is in my heart.  _

_ And to my son, Jughead, may he never sit on the throne I built for him.  _

Before he can continue, the phone rings, dropping the binder back into the box, he answers the phone. “Hello?” 

Edgar breathes loudly on the other end, breath crackling through the phone. “Get your ass back here, son. We need to decide what to do with the Ghoulies fucking over our gun shipment!” 

Jughead rolls his eyes. “Fine. Maybe we should hit up Archie as well,” he suggests quickly, knowing his best friend needs the money. “He could do with the cash.” 

Edgar pauses and Jughead knows that’s not a good sign. “He wanted out, he’s out. Now he needs the money, he wants in?”

Jughead knows better than to argue, but when it comes to Archie, there’s no way he couldn’t try his damn hardest to help him out. “He’s struggling, Ed.” 

“What if he flakes out again? He’s made it clear that he’d choose his own ass over his brothers. He gets caught, we’re the ones going down for it! And trust me, I’ll be blaming your sorry ass for it!” 

“Okay, okay,” Jughead groans, rubbing his face. “I’ll be back at the Whyte Wyrm in an hour, I’m just at the storage unit getting shit for the baby.”

“Mmm,” Edgar replies slowly. “Alright, we’ll see you soon.” 

Jughead grabs the pushchair and bassinet and chucks them in the back of his mom’s truck before shutting the trunk and heading back to the roller door of the unit to pull it down. He eyes the box with his father’s name on it and decides to take it, throwing the box in the backseat. 

His father always loved the snakepit, so what exactly was the downfall of the Serpents?

* * *

Gladys Jones lines her eyes, black and heavy before buttoning up her blouse. She eyes the scar on her chest that’s all puffed up and grisley, she wonders if her grandbaby’s scar will be the same. Or maybe smaller, just like Jellybean’s was. She wonders if the poor kid will even survive when all he has is his father, and he can’t even face the reality of it all. Gladys knows she raised her own baby to be tough and hardened. But not  _ this _ hard. Not when it comes to his own  _ son _ . 

She eyes the bible that sits on the basin in Toni’s hospital room. It’s old, from around the 1920’s if she remembers correctly and it had been given to her grandfather when he became the Priest at the Greendale St. John’s church. Even through her hardest times, she always fell back on that book. She’s not religious, not in the slightest, but there was something comforting about having her grandfather around. 

She steps out of the bathroom, faced with Toni’s sleeping form in the bed. If she could say she hated someone, right now, in this moment, it was the junkie in the bed. She tried to steal life, take it from her grandson. 

An eye for an eye, Gladys thinks. If Toni tried to break  _ her _ family, she'd break  _ Toni _ . The difference is, she won’t fail like Toni did. She’ll break her. She’ll break her rib cage. She’ll break her until she  _ bleeds _ .

Her heels click along the floor, the sound must have woken Toni because her eyes slowly open. There’s a panic in her, Gladys can tell, her teeth grit and she jerks up, straightening her back in the bed. She’s  _ scared _ . 

And Gladys  _ loves _ it. 

“What are you doing here, Gladys?” Toni asks hurriedly, visibly shaken by Gladys’s presence. 

She can tell Toni is worried, that’s why she moves a little closer, keeping her grandfather’s bible tightly in her hand. “Thought you might want to say a prayer…” 

Toni eases just a little. Gladys notices the dullness in her eyes, her usually bright, purple hair flat and uncombed. Her skin is pale. But she takes Gladys’s hand when she offers it. “Yeah…” she whispers. “Okay…” 

Gladys gives her a menacing smile, almost a snarl matched with a silent hiss. Closing her eyes, she begins. “Our beloved god,” she starts, opening her eyes to see Toni’s reaction. Seeing that her eyes are closed too, awaiting their calming prayer, she continues. “Please protect and watch over our new baby. Please help to keep him from his junkie mother, who so selfishly wanted to kill him -” she’s cut off when Toni yanks her hand from her. 

“I said I was sorry!” Toni cries, tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t want this to happen! I’m trying to get help!’

Gladys simply rolls her eyes, leaning in closer to Toni’s ear, she whispers. “If you want help, darlin’, I have it right here,” she says, waving her grandfather’s bible in the air. “The good book is here to help you. But I don’t ever,  _ ever _ ,” she hisses, “Want to see you around my family again, you hear me? Because not even god will be able to save you from the wrath of Jughead… or me, I’m his mama after all… you ever wondered where he got that bad streak from?”

Chucking the book at Toni, Gladys stands up, hopping off the bed. Toni’s shaky hands open the bible and right in the middle is a loaded needle, locked and ready to go. 

Gladys spins on her heels as she listens to Toni’s sobs follow behind her. She smiles, letting the sound of her cries keep her going for the day. 

* * *

The house was just as he remembered it to be. Even though Archie and Veronica Andrews had been living in his old family home for almost ten years, it still looked exactly the same as when they were kids and Fred and Mary lived there. Still the same warmth, the same exact paint, even Fred’s old pickup that Archie drives now is still parked in the driveway. The feeling he gets when he pulls into the driveway is not for fear of ghosts like when he remembers moments when his own dad was around. It was a similar feeling to  _ home _ and how he misses the old days. He briefly looks over to the house next door, wondering if the Doctor who's constantly on his mind was home too. 

Sitting in the truck for a minute, he gathers his thoughts. He watches Ellie and Freddie wave at him from the outside their garage as they bounce a ball and he waves back but he stops when he sees Veronica raise her hand into the air, just beyond her kids while she stands inside the garage and it comes back down, crashing against Archie’s face, slapping him hard. 

Jughead doesn’t even flinch, he doesn’t bother to run out and help like part of his heart tells him he should. He knows he should, any decent best friend would at least try and diffuse the situation. But he knows what will happen if he goes in there. She’ll either attack him too, or he’ll make it worse for Archie when he gets home. 

Veronica makes her way back to the house, shooting a glare at Jughead before slamming the door and he takes it as his cue to go meet his best friend at his garage. Jughead slips out of the truck, heading towards him. 

Jughead tucks his hands into his pocket and Archie inhales sharply, shaking his head. “I didn’t even see you pull up,” Archie says in a breath. 

“Thought I’d take my time coming in so I didn’t piss Veronica off,” he shrugs. 

Archie scoffs. “Did you see that? She’s already pissed!” he rubs his cheek, shaking his head again. “She wants me to go back into construction, but I can’t justify busting my ass for twelve hours a day for shit pay and nothing to show for it…” 

Jughead swings his arm over Archie’s shoulders, pulling him in close. Archie always worried about everything, and Jughead took it upon himself, since they were kids, to try and stop him from worrying so much. “Ed’s already stressed about where your loyalties lie, Arch, but I know you and I know your heart is always sitting with your family so I know you’ll do the right thing by the club so it helps out you, Veronica and the kids. I’ve got your back. I promise, nothing will get in your way.”

Archie nods, sighing loudly. “What’s the plan?”

“Apart from not dying?” Jughead jokes, but Archie’s face falls. “Find out why the Ghoulies put a hit out on our warehouse. Get a new shipment of guns and run business.” 

“And where do I fit in?” Archie asks, pulling on the sleeves of his Serpent kutte. 

“You’re our best fighter, Arch. We need you for protection.” 

Archie’s face falls to the ground and Jughead knows Veronica’s standing behind him. Forcing his most comforting smile he can muster, he turns around to greet her. “Ronnie,” he says quietly, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. 

Her face is tight, lips pursed and brow furrowed. “You promised, Jug,” she says, voice breaking a little. “That Archie wouldn’t have to do this anymore... “ 

Jughead feels a lump in his throat. If he had a dollar for every promise he broke, he’d be a rich man and he wouldn’t have to do this anymore either. Every time he swore he would get out, ended up being another promise broken. He knows it’s the same for Archie too. The snakepit doesn’t set anyone free. The lies are more common than the truths. “I know, V,” he groans. “But I need him. Just for this one thing.” 

Archie gives his wife a hopeful look, hoping she’d let him go without punishment this one time, Jughead can read his expressions like a book. “Veronica...”

Jughead walks away, letting the two sort things out without making him feel guiltier than he already does. 

* * *

Betty knows she shouldn’t be so invested in Jughead Jones’s family problems, but she is. She’s angry. Fucking pissed off. Toni was doing so well, so how did she manage to get a needle of meth to overdose? How could she do that when she wanted to try to get to rehab and how could she do that to the son who was trying to keep himself alive in the ward next to her? 

And where the hell was Jughead when this was happening? 

Betty is relieved to see Jughead in the viewing room, but as usual, his mother is attached to his side, stroking his hair out of his eyes and smiling down on her grandson through the glass as if there wasn’t a care in the world. She places a kiss on Jughead’s cheek and continues to whisper to him. Betty knows the woman could never see the flaws in her own son and she can already tell the same rules will apply to her grandson. Which were none. There were never any rules for Gladys Jones and her boys. 

Gladys spots her so Betty waves feebly as she approaches the two Joneses. The Serpent Queen gives her a smug smile and something tells her that Toni’s overdose might not have been as unexpected as it might have originally seemed. Standing before Betty was a woman who would not stop until she got what she wanted. And Betty knows what she wanted is Toni  _ gone _ . 

_“Doctor_ Cooper,” Gladys says thickly, making the hairs on the back of Betty’s neck stand up. “How’s everything going?” 

She’s tempted to smack the smug smirk off the matriarch’s face but she controls herself, instead, she takes a breath, smiles gently at Jughead and says; “Toni has somehow overdosed, we’re not sure how, but we have the police on it and Chief Keller should be in later to investigate…” 

She watches Gladys’s smile falter just a little and replace itself with a frown. Jughead shakes his head, looking at his son. “Fucking junkie,” he whispers. 

“Other than that,” Betty continues. “The baby’s doing well. He may need another operation in a month or so, but we’ll see after he’s recovered from this repair.” 

He sighs. “Can you take down my number so you can call me straight away about these things?” 

“We probably have your number on file, Jug…” 

He shakes his head. “I might need you to call my burner. My non-legit phone if it’s an emergency and you can’t get me on my normal phone.” 

Betty swallows loudly. Of course he had a phone for his less-than-legal activities, but she’s not sure why she’s so surprised. “Yeah, of course,” she says, grabbing his phone off him and adding the number on his screen to her phone. “So when we decide to go ahead with it, I’ll call you.” 

“Chances?” Jughead asks. “Of this being successful?”

Her heart drops again. Watching the small frame of the baby that she just operated on, rise and fall was both humbling and daunting. She didn’t want to say the truth out loud. “20 percent again, that’s if his healing goes well.”

She watches his face contort just a little before falling deadpan again. Placing his hand on the glass, he sighs. “Not good…” 

“Hey!” Gladys elbows her son in the ribs before reaching up to his face and digging her nails into his cheeks, forcing him to look at her, “Don’t you say that!” she hisses. “Your son is in there and right now, he needs his father to believe in him!” 

“She’s right you know,” Betty adds. “He needs you to be there for him.” 

“Joneses don’t just die easy, baby,” she snaps. “JB survived six whole years after being told we wouldn’t be bringing her home. Your father was dragged at one hundred and fifty eight miles after being hit by that semi-trailer truck and that bastard still lived another two days before giving up. He’s a fighter, like all of the Joneses!” 

Jughead manages a smile and nods. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

“Of course I’m right,” Gladys agrees. _“I’m your mother.”_

Gladys doesn’t even say goodbye when she walks away but Betty is grateful for the break from her. Standing next to Jughead, she notices a tear escape him. Reaching for his hand, she links her fingers in his. “Thank you,” he mumbles. 

“For what?” 

“For this,” he says, lifting their hands between them. “Keeping me grounded. For keeping my kid alive. It’s hard to believe you were gone for so long when this feels so familiar.” 

She knows exactly what he means. If she shuts her mind down enough, she swears they’re seventeen again on the banks of Sweetwater River, planning their great escape from Riverdale. 

But, the constant beeping of the heart monitor draws her back to reality and she’s a doctor covered in the blood of the son of the most dangerous man in town. 

She doesn’t reply to him, she knows she shouldn’t or they’ll get lost in memories. “What's his name?” she asks quietly. “He needs a name.” 

“Nathanial,” he answers. 

Nathanial. The son of the Serpent. 

* * *

Archie slows down in his pickup when Jughead points to a dirty bar on the edge of Greendale. “Why here?” he asks. 

Jughead spots Joaquin and Fangs already standing outside the bar. “This is where Chuck hangs.” 

“The dealer?” 

He nods. “ _ Toni’s _ dealer.” 

“So?”

“We’re going in.” 

They both jump out of the pickup and run across the road to where their brothers are standing. Both Fangs and Joaquin give Archie a hug, clapping him on the back before letting go. “So, we’re doing this?” Joaquin asks. 

“We’re doing this,” Jughead repeats.

The Shipwreck smells like stale beer and vomit. Strung out women are sitting in the laps of some dealers Jughead recognises, but none are the one he’s looking for until he sees him hunched over a pool table. 

Approaching the table with his three brothers behind him, he takes a cue from one guy waiting his turn and slams it over Chuck’s head, catching him off guard so quickly, he drops immediately to the floor, his head smacking the pool table on his way down.    


The bar falls silent for a split second before two other dealers make their way to the table, swinging hits at anyone, at Jughead, at his brothers behind him. Some land on his body that he ignores, Joaquin and Archie take care of the two dealers who try to join the fight, Joaquin having one in a headlock. “Nothing to see here, boys!” he calls. 

“Just a guy concerned about the mother of his child,” Archie adds. “Let him have it!” 

Chuck scrambles back onto his feet, diving head first at Jughead’s torso to tackle him to the ground but Jughead picks up the cue again and slams it against his head, listening to the wood bend against his skull. Chuck falls onto his back again. Jughead looms over him, blood pulsing quickly through his body, his head throbbing at the image of Chuck’s head bleeding on the ground. The adrenaline keeps him high, no one could stop him now. 

Landing his foot on Chuck’s gut as he stamps down on him, he spits; “And you thought it was a good idea to sell drugs to my pregnant ex?!” 

Another kick lands on Chuck’s ribs. “I’m sorry!” he stutters. “I didn’t know she was your girlfriend!” 

“She was pregnant!” he says, this time on his knees, placing a blow against his jaw. “You sell drugs to pregnant women?!” 

With each punch, blood splatters around Chuck’s head, painting the ground. He manages more blows against Chuck’s jaw until Archie places a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here, Jug.” 

Jughead storms his way out of the bar with three of his best behind him. The air is fresh and cool against his skin as he breathes in deeply. 

He feels good.

* * *

She thought moving back into their old family home would be more comforting than this. That maybe the good memories would outweigh the bad. 

She had showered and put her scrubs in the machine to be washed. Hoping that both acts would wash a little of her thoughts and memories down the drain, but it didn’t work. She still lies on top of the sheets on the bed that she had since she was young and all the memories come flooding back. Mostly the memories of her room and how many promises and dreams she and Jughead spoke about that never came to fruition in these very walls. The disappointment hurts more than the reality that things never worked out the way she thought they would. She’s disappointed that seventeen year old her believed that they would even happen. 

She lies on the bed and thinks about baby Nathanial. How he survived all odds but still has a long way to go. She knows that she’s pushing herself to every limit for that kid. She knows it’s because maybe, she’s trying to make up for leaving Jughead behind. She’ll never stop thinking about what might have happened if she had stayed… or she had begged him to leave with her. 

Betty’s eyes shoot open when she hears her phone ring, looking at the screen, she doesn’t recognise the number. 

“Hello?” 

“Betty,” a voice says that makes her skin crawl. She opens and closes her mouth, unsure of what to say. Or what to do. 

“How did you get my number?”

“That’s not how you greet your boyfriend, Betty. How have you been?”

His voice is slimy, greasy and unsettling. Bolting up off the bed, she looks outside her bedroom window down to the road briefly before shutting the curtain and running to the apartment door to check that it’s locked. “Trev, you’re not supposed to contact me.”

“Well, Trev Brown is the new agent in town working alongside the police. So you might just see more of me…” 

Betty quickly hangs up. Leaning on the door, she takes a few steadying breaths before feeling her body give out, letting it shake while tears stream down her face. A sob escapes her as she crumbles to the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees. 

Picking up her phone, she quickly scrolls her contacts until she sees Jughead’s name. Safety, that’s what she wants. That’s why she came home. She wanted to feel safe, but everything around her is laced with danger. 

Except, she thinks. Jughead Jones. 

He’s both danger and safety in one. And she never felt so at home until she was linked with him at the hospital. 

* * *

Jughead sits on the roof of the Whyte Wyrm with a ring binder that he’d taken from his father’s box. Before starting to read, he spots a black Mercedes parked outside on the road. New agents, he thinks. He lets them carry on watching him, he doesn’t have the energy to scope them out. 

Lighting a cigarette before he starts, he turns to a random page. For the first time in twelve years, he meets his father again.    
  


…

  
  
  


_ You get to a point, son, where everything you do has a ripple effect. One wrong move sets off a chain of events. If you answer every single one of your problems with retaliation, you have to know what price you have to pay. Sometimes, retaliation isn’t key. Sometimes, the best answer is to do nothing, let nature take its course.  _

_ Or you’ll end up with a whole lot of burdens on your shoulders. _

  
  
  


_... _

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Three Preview:
> 
> Betty hears the buzzer sound and it’s to alert that someone was coming through. Looking up, she’s met with Jughead’s form storming through the hospital. He stops at the viewing window, smile as bright as the sun at Betty with his son in her arms. 
> 
> She gently moves her hand from the baby and waves at him, ushering him to come in. Standing up, she tucks the blanket tighter around Nathanial and looks up at his father who was smiling down at him. “Do you want to hold your son for the first time?” 
> 
> Jughead doesn’t even answer. He holds his arms out, nervously biting his lip just like he’d done when they were kids. She would constantly have to remind him to stop biting. But not this time. She knows the nerves would be eating him alive.


	3. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the editor for everything you do. To Mal for being the encouragement I always need, even after all these years. To the readers for giving me a reason to write.

_**Home** _

* * *

_ We had a vision. I thought we all did. Things started where they all do - with what seemed like a good idea. We were young, we smoked too many joints, drank a little beer, drove cars that weren’t ours. We rebelled in our youth and slapped a label on it - we were the Southside Serpents. And we loved belonging to something.  _

_ Looking back, all we ever wanted was a home.  _

  
  
  


_ … _

It doesn’t matter how many times he sees Betty in her scrubs, cooing over his son who’s still linked up to machines, there was something that tugged deep down in his chest that he couldn’t ignore. Sometimes, she’s the seventeen year old girl who promised him she loved him, covered in grease during her shift at Pop’s. Sometimes, when his thoughts are messy, she’s the eighteen year old woman standing at the bus stop, begging him to leave with her. 

Now, she’s the woman who saved his son’s life that he can’t stop thinking about. 

He watches her tuck a blanket around Nathanial’s small body, lifting her head, she spots him on the other side of the glass, greeting him with a smile that makes his cheeks crack as he smiles back. He’d never get sick of her smile, not even after all this time. 

Betty washes her hands in a basin before heading out of the room to meet him on the other side. “He loves his sleep,” she says quietly, tossing a paper towel in a bin. She moves next to him and looks through the glass back at the boy she had just cared for. “Like father, like son I guess.” 

Jughead chuckles, nodding in agreeance. “You remember?”

“Well,” she says with a menacing smile. “we didn’t get much sleep during the night back then, you had to make up for it by sleeping in late during the morning, even if you’d get your head bitten off by your mother for turning up late to school.” 

He sighs, his mother was obsessed with him getting to school on time, attending every class on time as if he wasn’t going to end up in the club anyway. “I guess she had to stick to  _ some _ social norms.” 

Betty bites her lip, Jughead knows she’s holding some sharp comeback about his mother, she always had. He knows his mother is hard work, especially when it comes to Betty. “I guess so,” she replies simply. 

“How’s Toni?” he asks. The guilt that he constantly swallows down, rises back up again. He hadn’t seen her. He didn’t  _ want _ to see her. Partly because he knew that if he had tried a little harder, maybe she wouldn’t have overdosed. Maybe his son wouldn’t be behind a glass window right now. The other part was due to the fact he didn’t know what he’d do if he had seen her. Still alive. When his son was  _ battling _ . It didn’t matter how hard he tried, he knows that. No matter how many times he sent her to rehab, how many times he tried to make it work. He and Toni were both fire, and together, they couldn’t put it out. Too much the same. The more he thinks about it, the more he knows that no matter what, this was the way it was going to end. You can’t change fate. 

“She’s gone to rehab,” Betty answers. She opens and closes her mouth again, stopping herself from saying what’s on her mind. 

“What is it?”

Betty turns to him, eyes glassy and lips pursed. “When she gets out, Jug, you’re going to have to figure out what you’re going to do.” 

Jughead looks her in the eye. He knows what she’s saying, he needs to figure out where Toni sits and where  _ she _ might fit. He brushes her hair out of her eyes before leaning down to press his lips to hers. 

There was a shift in the place. There was no static noise through the hospital room, no clinical beeping or smell of bleach. He feels it. Just her and him, just the two of them together. Her lips move against his, her fingers slide up his neck, get lost in his hair. He closes his eyes, lets the moment sink in. No time separated them, no distance in between. They were never apart. 

Always together forever. He feels it in his heartbeat. 

Betty sighs against him, gently pushing away with her hands on his chest. “We’ve barely even spoken, Jughead.”

She doesn’t wait for him to reply. She walks away with her stethoscope swinging around her neck. But he whispers to himself. “We don’t even have to.” 

* * *

Edgar sits on the edge of their bed, burying his face into Gladys’s stomach. She holds him close, planting a kiss on his head before pulling away. Slowly, she turns around, reaching to the bedside table where the cortisone needle sits. Tapping it first, she grabs one of her husband’s hands, kissing it gently before inserting the needle between his joints, trying to be as quick as possible and grimacing when he winces. 

She repeats the process on the other hand, hoping that this time, the effects of the cortisone will last a little longer and rid him of most of the arthritis pain. “How’s that for you, baby?” she asks. 

Edgar groans, rubbing his face with his stiffened hands. “Too many years gripping those Harley bars is gonna be the reason I can’t run my club anymore… the irony.”

Gladys tidies up the mess on the table. There was always something possessive when Edgar referred to the Serpents as  _ his _ club. FP might have tapped out even years before his death, but that man built the club from the ground up with his own blood, sweat and tears. He was a fighter and a visionary. The Southside Serpents were what he made it. But she knows that what he built was also his undoing, so maybe Edgar did deserve to carry that title. He would never back down, Gladys knows that. 

“As long as I’m with you, baby,” she says softly, “You’ll have hands that can work, okay?”

He nods. “Okay…” 

Gladys sits down next to him. The problem with Edgar was that he barely had a poker face. She could read every single bit of him, and right now, he was worried. “What’s happening?”

His sigh expelled demons that she could sense, rubbing his face again with slightly loosened fingers, he answers. “The boy. He’s challenging everything I say.” 

Gladys wishes that she was surprised. Her son was headstrong, competitive and willing to push the limits. “He’s got too much of his father in him…” 

Edgar sniggers. “I know. It’s like he’s the fucking ghost of his father. He never listens, he goes above me to do what he thinks is best for the club!” 

She can sense the frustration in her husband, but also the danger in his voice. Edgar may look at her son as his own, but the ghost of FP Jones showing itself in Jughead was only going to be trouble. “You need to mould him, baby,” she whispers against his cheek. 

“I’m trying to, Glad… I don’t want him going down the wrong path.” 

She nods, taking his hands in hers. “You make sure he starts following in the right father’s footsteps.”

* * *

Jughead sits in the club room watching Edgar smoke a cigar without even looking up. Edgar’s arrogance was something that Jughead used to admire, he didn’t listen to anyone. He didn’t have to. But now that he’s his VP and they’re supposed to be a team, it’s just something that pisses him off. 

“Archie,” Jughead starts.

Edgar lifts his eyes slowly, looking at Jughead sideways. “Mmmm?” 

“I want him back in,” he states, cracking his knuckles against his palm. 

His step-father remains still, only lifting his hand to take a puff of his cigar. “I don’t trust him, Jug.” 

“Why?!” he snaps. 

“Because, dammit!” Edgar snaps, banging his fist on the table. “When he got out of prison, he ran straight home! Veronica is demanding he work straight and do you know what happens when a brother has to choose between the club and his old lady?!” he spits. 

Jughead remains silent, not flinching even with his step-father’s shouts. 

He continues. “They end up shitting on the club for the sake of keeping their woman happy!” 

Edgar goes back to scanning over the newspaper that has a photo of Mayor Josie McCoy over it, but Jughead snaps back anyway. “Archie needs the money to keep afloat, Ed,” he explains. “If anything bad happens, that’s on me. But if put in the situation that jeopardises us, Archie won’t rat. Even if it comes down to Veronica.” 

“Veronica doesn’t want him in the life, son,” his step-father says more calmly. “She doesn’t care if we go down. And we just can’t risk having someone back in the club that might do that!” 

Jughead feels his blood boiling, his fists clench and his feet dig harder against the flooring. Archie was his brother. Not just in  _ club _ . He could almost swear it was in  _ blood _ . They were born together, raised together. There wasn’t anything Jughead wouldn’t do for Archie and he knows Archie feels the same way too. Jughead stands up, shoving his chair back that falls over and clangs against the floor. “If you say Archie can’t come back officially, then I’m taking it to the table for a vote!” 

They lock eyes. Air that you can cut circles around them as Jughead looms over Edgar. Edgar instead meets him with a smile, all sharp edged and fearless. “Fine,” he agrees. “But if anything happens, son. You’re the one going down for it.” 

Jughead doesn’t retaliate. He leaves the club room, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

“My balls are bigger than this pile of firearms!” Reggie says, looking at the small pile of guns they’d managed to salvage from the burnt down warehouse. 

Now, they stand outside their new warehouse only miles away from the old one, but they have barely anything to keep in it. Bar a few AK’s. 

Mad Dog tilts his head looking at the pile then looking at Reggie's crotch. “Yeah?” he asks. “Prove it.” 

“Here we go,” Fangs groans, rolling his eyes. 

Reggie’s face drops, but his hands go to his belt buckle. “Do I have to?” 

“You said it,” Sweet Pea shrugs. “Now Mad Dog wants proof.” 

Joaquin shakes his head. “You two,” he says, pointing his fingers at Mad Dog and Sweet Pea. “Are fucking weird.” 

“What?” Mad Dog asks, pretending to be shocked. “He said his balls are bigger than a pile of guns and I want to see if it’s true!” 

“Yeah!” Sweet Pea agrees. “Have you ever seen balls that big?” 

Reggie sighs, unzipping his fly, he’s about to pull down his pants until Jughead intervenes. “Don’t listen to those idiots!” he snaps, kicking the pile of firearms. “Pull your god damn pants up!” He lets his boys keep arguing as he steps away, taking a cigarette break. 

Jughead doesn’t know what to do about the firearms that were destroyed. Or even what to do with the few that survived. The club simply didn’t have enough cash to get their supplier, Jason Blossom, to give them another shipment and they didn’t have enough firearms left to sell to the street gangs to get more money. They were fucked. 

Taking a drag of his smoke, he closes his eyes and lets the night time breeze wash over him. He wishes he were at home, watching tv with a blunt doing nothing. He wonders if Betty is working tonight, spending the time with his son that he wishes he were. Or maybe she’s fallen victim to his mother’s constant questions. 

They were out the back area between Riverdale and Greendale, nothing but bush and forest out here for miles but he can hear movement that sounds like vehicles over the sound of Sweetwater River. He hears Mad Dog’s glock click though as the crew fall silent. 

Jughead drops his cigarette to the ground, quietly, he stamps it out and puts his forefinger to his lips, gesturing for the boys to remain silent as he listens out into the breeze. 

The wheels are moving quickly he can tell. Speeding through the dirt road. Hurrying back to the group and opening the satchel on his bike, he pulls out his own sawn-off, watching the trees and leaves move as the vehicle drives through the area. 

“Who do you think it is?!” Joaquin hurries, pulling into closer to the group. “Poisons? Ghoulies?” 

“Whoever did the hit on our old warehouse,” Jughead whispers back. 

Fangs squints. “Looks like Ghoulies to me.” 

“Whoever it is,” Mad Dog hisses, his eyes darkening and his smile growing. “I hope they’re up for a fight.” 

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes. “Man, for once, can you not go into something with the intention of blowing the head off someone?” 

Mad Dog argues back “Just because you’d rather cut someone up Hannibal style doesn’t mean I want to!” 

Reggie’s head sways back and forth between the two arguing and Jughead fires a shot into the ground. “Can you two love birds stop fucking fighting for once!?”

Finally a black SUV comes into view but before anyone can scope out exactly who’s driving the car, shots start raining down on them. Hiding behind the van that Sweet Pea had brought with him to the warehouse, they retreat for a second but the loud pops of the bullets hitting metal deafens them. 

Reggie heads out first, keeping low to the ground, he fires shots at the SUV that has come to a halt, doors slamming as the people exit the car. Peeking out from behind the Serpents van, Jughead notices the kuttes on the backs of their attackers. “Fucking Ghoulies!” he shouts to his boys. “Malachi!” he shouts to the group approaching. 

He can see Malachi, cocky grin spread on his face with his own sawn-off directly out in front of him, aiming right at Jughead’s skull. Tucking back against the truck he looks to his left, Mad Dog staring straight at him. “So what’s the plan, VP?” he says through breaths. 

Kill before being killed, Jughead knows. “Get them before they get us, Mad Dog!” 

Jughead points behind his shoulder, giving his crew cues to follow his lead. He gets down low just as Reggie did who’s now hiding with his back to a tree. Fangs and Joaquin follow Jughead out, but both Mad Dog and Sweet Pea head out with their heads high, guns blazing. 

Shots hitting anything and anyone in their paths. 

“Mad Dog!” Jughead yells, keeping his gun up. His own shots hit a body, he watches it only for a split second while it receives every bullet, body contorting and jerking with each shot. There’s a brief moment of satisfaction until he feels a bullet brush past his ear, only narrowly missing him. 

He hears Malachi’s scream as one of his men falls to the ground, but his attention is taken back to Sweet Pea who has his hand around a Ghoulie’s throat and his knife digging into the victim’s rib. Sharp, high pitched screams escape their mouth while Sweet Pea smiles down on him. 

Jughead fires again, this time hitting someone in the shoulder who crashes down with a thud. He ends up almost flying in the air when several bullets land by his feet so he runs again.

He’s met with Reggie now against the van and a Ghoulie in close range of his head, ready to blow. Before they can pull the trigger, Jughead unloads into the Ghoulies back, so many times, the blood of the Ghoulie splatters back on his face, he feels it running down his neck. He has to replace his clip as he watches the young guy lie in a pool of his own blood. 

Reggie doesn’t hold back. He kicks the Ghoulie for good measure. 

Malachi pauses for a moment while Mad Dog has one of his guys as hostage. “Fine!” he shouts, looking at his fallen men around him. 

Jughead approaches quickly, anger building inside him that he’s close to unleashing on Malachi’s face. They were approached, unprovoked on top of their warehouse being burnt down. He wanted someone to pay. Why not go for the biggest Ghoulie on the food chain?

His fresh clip feels just about right to land in the middle of the Ghoulie King’s chest. 

Jughead makes it to Malachi who has his hands in the air. Digging the barrel of the sawn-off into his jaw, Jughead spits. “What the  _ FUCK _ are you doing?!” 

Malachi doesn’t move, instead, he runs his tongue over his teeth. “Finders, keepers…” 

“You want our gun business?!” Jughead snaps, digging the gun deeper.

The Ghoulie laughs manically. “The Poisons have taken our drug trade. You run the gun trade. We needed in with new business.” 

Jughead lets him go, shoving his shoulder. “Get out of here. You tell Martinez that we keep our business, and we won’t kill you.” 

He can see the relief on Malachi’s face when he lets him go. “What about my boy!” he says, jerking his head to the guy that Mad Dog has taken hostage. 

Jughead laughs, shaking his head. “He’s ours now. To make sure you keep to your own turf.” 

Mad Dog watches Jughead, so the Vice President gives his cue. Nodding at his brother, Jughead lets Mad Dog do what he was waiting for. 

He fires a single shot through the back of the Ghoulies head. 

Jughead walks away, letting his boys clean up the mess while he listens to the sweet sound of Malachi’s cries. 

* * *

He stares at himself in the mirror of the bathroom in the back of the club. He knows he should go home, avoiding it wasn’t going to do anything but make it harder to go there. He was afraid of the memories of Toni. Of the room he had decorated for the baby. He was afraid that his home would never feel like a home. But it has to feel better than the stale, dumb self contained unit at the back of the Whyte Wyrm that smells like sex and cigarettes. 

Washing as much of the blood down the sink that had come off his body, he pats himself dry. His eyes had bags under them. Deep purple and blue. His face had too many small, shiny scars that now, he couldn’t even remember how he had inherited any of them. 

“Hey Jug!” comes from outside the room, Mad Dog bangs on the door. “Come and check this out!” 

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Jughead pulls a shirt over his head before splashing a little more water on his face. He turns to head out, pushing Mad Dog out of the way with the door at the same time. “What is it?” 

Mad Dog’s grin tells Jughead just enough. He’s done something stupid and someone’s going to get hurt doing it. “First,” he says, pulling up his own shirt. “Look.” 

He points to a little smiley face tattoo in a sea of the exact same tattoo.His little collection of tattoos for every killing he’s done… that he knows of. It’s still fresh and red, blood speckles sitting on the surface of the lines. Jughead slaps his hand hard on it and his brother jerks back. “Looks good, Mad Dog,” he laughs. 

Mad Dog grimaces. “Fuck you!” 

“Is that all you wanted to show me?”

He shakes his head. “Nah man. Look at this.” 

Jughead follows behind Mad Dog as he leads him into the bar. Lying on the ground is Reggie passed out, no clothes on and an adult diaper instead. “What the fuck happened here?” he asks. 

Sweet Pea leans against the bartop, shit eating grin just as big as Mad Dog’s. “He thought he was popping speed. Instead, he was popping Ol’ man Fred’s sleeping pills.” 

“We might go and drop him off for Keller to deal with. He might get a kick out of babysitting.” 

“Tom or Kevin?” Jughead asks, unable to stop himself from smiling too. “Because something tells me that Tom’s not going to care about Reggie passed out in front of the station.” 

“Kev,” Sweet Pea shrugs. “He’ll get a laugh out of it.” 

Jughead shakes his head, taking a bottle of beer from the counter. After the night’s events, he was grateful for the normality for once. Even if it came with Reggie dressed as a giant baby.

* * *

Betty can still feel his lips on hers just from looking at him. She knows she promised herself she wouldn’t do this to herself again. Fall in love. With him, of all people. But she’s not so sure she ever fell  _ out _ of love with him. 

When he kissed her in the viewing room, she couldn’t stay to listen to his words. Or his pleas. Jughead was so sure of himself, so perfect and pretty with his words. Everything he ever told her seemed like a promise he’d always keep but he never did, not ten years ago. 

And something tells her that it’s no different now. 

Just being with him, being in his presence made her feel safe. The phone call from Trev shook her but Jughead’s presence made her feel steadfast. 

She’d looked over his number for what felt like a million times the day Trev called. But he didn’t call again and she never called Jughead. 

Baby Nathanial stirs in her arms and she brushes her thumb over his forehead, wanting to press soft kisses against his small features, she instead continues to rock him, humming gently to lull him asleep. Though they were in the clinical setting of his hospital room, this felt like home. Him in her arms, peacefully asleep, finally free of most of his cords and strings. She was happy and she was happy for  _ him _ . 

Betty hears the buzzer sound and it’s to alert that someone was coming through. Looking up, she’s met with Jughead’s form storming through the hospital. He stops at the viewing window, smile as bright as the sun at Betty with his son in her arms. 

She gently moves her hand from the baby and waves at him, ushering him to come in. Standing up, she tucks the blanket tighter around Nathanial and looks up at his father who was smiling down at him. “Do you want to hold your son for the first time?” 

Jughead doesn’t even answer. He holds his arms out, nervously biting his lip just like he’d done when they were kids. She would constantly have to remind him to stop biting. But not this time. She knows the nerves would be eating him alive. 

She gently places Nathanial in his father’s arms for the first time. She alters Jug’s hands underneath the baby’s body, making sure he has a good grip. Grabbing his forearm and guiding him to the rocking chair, she gets Jughead to sit down. Taking a step back, she watches the father and son meet each other properly in six weeks. 

Betty can tell he’s a natural. She’d seen so many parents with their children over the years but this was the first time she’d ever seen a bond so strong. Jughead’s eyes start to well and the love he has for his son was so apparent, she almost felt like she was intruding. He rocks Nathanial back and forth, whispering gently against the baby’s ear. “I’m your dad, son.” 

Betty holds back tears herself. Nathanial has the same dark hair as his dad, the same nose. In this moment, she can see forever. An entire life right here in this room. 

Jughead looks at Betty, patting the chair next to him, he says; “Come and sit with us…” 

She joins them, leaning in to Jughead, she keeps her eyes and her smile on the baby. “He’s so perfect, Jug,” she whispers. 

“This was all you, Doc,” he laughs. “You made this all possible.” 

Betty rocks in time with the boys next to her. For the first time in years, she feels like she’s part of a family. She knows she shouldn’t, but there’s something comforting about the feeling she’s in right now. 

When she looks up, she’s met with the eyes of Gladys Jones. Her lips are curved up into a smile, but Betty can see a whole other look in Gladys’s eyes. 

Like maybe Gladys sees the same thing Betty feels. Like she’s part of the family. But she really, really doesn’t like it.

* * *

Betty walks out of her favourite coffee shop and heads towards the police station. Noticing something or someone moving in the bushes having noticed a foot hanging out of the bush as she moves closer. 

Kevin stands with his hands on his hips, his sheriff badge shining in the sunlight and he rolls his eyes so hard, Betty can feel them moving in her head. Taking a sip of her coffee, she stands next to Kevin. “Rough morning, Sheriff?” she asks with an amused look on her face. 

“See the sort of shit I have to deal with, B?” he asks, kicking the body again. “Get up!” he yells. 

Looking down at the body, she first notices the adult diaper… closely followed by the sign stapled to his bare chest that reads; “Please return me to my mommy”.

Reggie rubs his eyes, then as he goes to speak, he realises his mouth is taped shut with a pacifier in between. Ripping the tape and pacifier from his mouth followed by pulling off the sign and staples with a groan, he slowly gets up. 

“B,” he says croakily. “Kev. I think I’m late for my morning feeding…” 

They both watch as Reggie starts his walk of shame.    
  
  


…

  
  
  
  


_ For the most part, we weren’t violent men. We were forced to be due to circumstances. When we move ourselves from the normality of life, you give up on everything that makes life what it is. Blood and bullets become the new norm. Violence and anger become part of you.  _

_ We weren’t violent, but something flicked in us and we became exactly what we didn’t want to be. _

  
  
  
  


_... _

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 Preview:
> 
> Betty can feel him on her skin, his smug smile even when she blinks. She tries to keep the sickness from her voice, not wanting to anger him. “That’s the point of the restraining order, you’re not supposed to make yourself known to me.” 
> 
> Trev chuckles, shaking his head. “Oh Betty, you’re so funny!” he laughs manically. “I’m in town for a while, I’m working on a case with the ATF…” 
> 
> She doesn’t say anything, still aware of the distance between her fingers and the pen she’s willing to plunge into his skin if necessary. “What does that have to do with me?”
> 
> “We’re going to take down the Southside Serpents. They’re going to be gone for a long, long time. So, you tell me what it has to do with you.” 
> 
> Betty thinks of Jughead. Wishing he were here now and would randomly pop into her office. She thinks about Trev’s new case and what it might mean for Jughead and the club. As much as she knows that the Serpents are no good, she can’t bear the idea of Jughead being locked up for a long time, just as Trev is promising. “Nothing,” she mutters. “It has nothing to do with me.”


	4. cycle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to two very important people. The editor for being with me every step of the way and Mal who has been there since day dot. 
> 
> A third thank you to you guys, the reader, who pay me in kudos and comments. I am forever grateful.
> 
> Also, for those who have watched SOA and have asked: will this end the same? the short answer is no. I could never put us through that again.

_**cycle** _

* * *

_Freedom, at the end of the day, was what we yearned for. The freedom of speech, to make our own decisions, to walk to the beat of our own drums. What we didn’t foresee was that our decisions and moves that we made only came with more restraints. Someone was always trying to hold us down, the system was trying to lock us up._

_It was a never ending cycle. It was the one thing we couldn’t escape._

_Sometimes, our only escape was to force our ways out… and that was a dangerous thing to do._

  
  
  
  


_...._

Tom Keller sits at the club table like he was another one of the crew. He laughs alongside Edgar, sips his coffee like the rest of the boys. 

But he wasn’t. He was on the opposite side of the law. 

Tom Keller had been on the Serpent payroll for as long as Jughead could remember. An agreement that FP had made early on in the club’s history and early on in Tom’s career. It didn’t matter how many of the Serpents had laughed about Tom’s relationship with the club, Jughead saw it for what it was. Tom knew that it was better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Serpents might be cruel and unforgiving, but they came with rules and a code, even if it didn’t seem like it. It was better to have them run Riverdale than the demons who lurk around, bigger and badder than the snake pit. 

Tom’s gun sits on the table alongside the rest of the Serpents, taking a sip of his coffee, he looks over to Reggie. “Thanks for the coffee, Reg,” he says, holding up his cup. “It’s perfect.” 

“Ooh, the coffee boy,” Sweet Pea mocks, blowing a kiss to him. 

Reggie pretends to catch it, putting the kiss against his cheek before Edgar speaks. “What owes us the pleasure, Tom?” 

Tom takes a deep breath, pursing his lips together before speaking. “Kev has inherited new friends,” he says, talking about his son. “Moose is having trouble over in Greendale so he’s unable to help us out here. We’ve got the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms team here in Riverdale and you know for a fact, they’ll be trying to take you down. I just thought you should be warned.” 

“Thanks for the heads up, Tommy,” Fred says. 

Kevin was in the running to take his father’s Chief’s title when Tom eventually retires, but he’s constantly walking the line of being committed to the law, or keeping in with the devils he knows. Jughead knows Moose won’t be on board as long as the ATF were in town. In all, Jughead knows they’re not in a good spot. 

“Oh man, that’s not good,” Archie mumbles beside him. 

“We’re fucked!” Mad Dog moans, putting out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table. Jughead couldn’t have said it better himself. 

“Not yet,” Fred argues. “We’ll come up with something.” 

He closes his eyes for a second and runs a hand through his hair. “What if you try and push them towards Greendale?” he asks Tom, but he just shakes his head. 

“Ghoulies already have the connection to you. They go down, you do too either way.” 

Edgar grinds his teeth. “What does this mean? With the ATF and Serpents?” 

“It means,” Tom starts, leaning in closer. “That in the next few days, your door is going to be busted down and you guys will be raided. So whatever, uh, _items_ ,” he says thickly, “You might have, need to go.” 

Reggie drums his fingers nervously on the table, looking from side to side, he lifts his shoulders. “I don’t have anything on me, what about you guys? I got rid of the coke I had stashed at my pad…” 

Joaquin digs his elbow into Reggie’s ribs. “Not you personally, dumb ass!” he snaps. “He means us - the _club!_ And the illegal firearms we sell!” 

_“Oh,”_ Reggie replies, shrinking down in his chair. “Oh shit!” he starts up again. “Guns!” 

Fangs shakes his head, looking at Reggie incredulously. “You’re so thick.” 

Jughead bangs his fist on the table to get order, knowing that if he lets them carry on any longer, they’ll be here all day. Tom stands up, pushing his cup to Reggie. “Thanks for that, Reg,” he says. “I’ll be off now. You guys do what you gotta do.” 

Walking out of the Whyte Wyrm, they’re left to discuss their plan. This wasn’t the first time they’d been stung by the ATF and Jughead knows it won’t be the last, but it sure was getting tiring. He looks over at his friend. “I’ll get mom to get in touch with Toledo charter,” he tells Mad Dog. “You keen to go back to your old stomping ground.” 

Mad Dog grins, nodding quickly. “You know I always like going home! Who’s coming with me?” 

No one puts their hands up but Mad Dog’s eyes zone in on Sweet Pea. “What?” Sweet Pea asks, knowing exactly what was about to happen. 

“You two go to Toledo and drop our firearms off at the charter before our raid,” Edgar orders. 

Fred bangs his fist on the table. “And what if they get caught between here and Toledo?”

Edgar lifts his head slowly, glare shooting at Fred from across the table. “We can’t live for _what-if’s,_ Fred.” 

“But you’re wanting to send only two guys out there. We need more manpower than that. They’re like sheep for slaughter!” Fred argues. 

Edgar shoots daggers at Fred. “We’re not discussing this! Mad Dog and Sweets will head out in the next couple of days and that’s final!” 

Fred straightens his shoulders, lifting his chin up. Jughead knows that this won’t end well, when the two of three remaining founding members start, it’s World War III. Archie puts his hand on his father’s shoulder, his face contorting with the same knowledge as Jughead. Knowing it was about to start. “Final? You’re sending our own out there while the ATF have their eye on us, while the Ghoulies are seeking us out, while the SW crew are lurking on the borders to gun us down too -”

“We don’t have to worry about the Stone Wall Crew!” Edgar spits, standing from his chair now. “I’ve spoken to Bret, what we have to worry about is you keeping in line, old man! And until you’re in this President’s seat, I suggest you shut up!” 

Jughead can see Fred starting to rise in his own seat but Archie hisses something inaudibly at him that makes him sit down again. “Fine. Sweet Pea and Mad Dog can go, but I’ll be on the phone to Toledo myself.” 

“That’s us, Sweets!” Mad Dog says, grin growing. 

“But -” Sweet Pea starts but he’s cut off. 

“No buts!” Edgar shouts and both of them shut up. 

Archie leans back in his chair before saying. “I’ll do a scan over the club house,” he says. 

Fred finally speaks from the table. “We need to get everything out before the ATF show. Anything else other than the firearms, I’ll take home in the pickup.” 

“That settles it then,” Edgar says. “Plan’s in place.”

Everyone leaves the table, Fred slowly getting up from his chair lingers long enough until it’s only him and Jughead left in the room. “I’ll be on the phone to Ant. See if he and the Toledo boys can meet Mad Dog and Sweets half way.”

Jughead knows Anthony Topaz would do anything for the club. As one of the remaining founding members, his loyalty ran strong and true. Toni used to be the same way as her father until her addiction took over her. “Ant won’t hesitate to help out.” 

Fred looks out the club room window that looks onto the bar of the Whyte Wyrm.“That’s how he used to talk to your father, Jug,” he murmurs. “Never gave him a chance to breathe. That’s not a leader. That’s a dictator.” 

Jughead looks up at his father’s best friend, searching for something, anything. 

He gets an answer just from Fred’s look. He knows Fred is right. Something’s gotta give.

* * *

With all of her multidisciplinary meetings done, Betty was thankful for a day away from theatre. She’d spent so much time under the bright lights of surgery, she was starting to fall behind on her paperwork. 

Her office was modest. Riverdale General didn’t have the flashy tech items or the fancy offices like the practice she left in Chicago, but it didn’t matter. Being home, looking after her own was what she wanted. 

Sitting down at her desk, she sorts through the files of her youngest and littlest patients. Smiling down at the files, she feels a sense of pride. Not in herself, but the little battlers that she works with every day. The survivors. They have a strength she’d never be able to understand no matter how hard she tried. She looks at Nathanial’s file, adding notes to it, her heart aches. She tried not to mix her personal life with her work one, but that baby already had a soft spot in the corner of her heart and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Just like she couldn’t do anything about the soft spot she keeps for his father as well. 

Betty is pulled from the files when she hears her office door open. Looking up, she’s faced with fear itself. 

Trev Brown. 

Standing up quickly, she looks around her desk to find something, anything at all that might hurt if struck by it. All she sees is the pen she was using, taking a mental note of its exact whereabouts, just in case she needs to grab it quickly. 

Trev’s smile is both sickening and smooth. He saunters in slowly, fingers dancing along the walls of her office, touching everything that belongs to her. She feels a lump rising up her throat, unsure if it were just nerves, or the sensation of becoming sick. 

“You’re not supposed to be here, Trev,” she says slowly, trying to find refuge behind her desk, 

He puts up his hands as if in truce but he still smiles and it still doesn’t feel right. “I just wanted to say hello, Betty, I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“What are you doing here?!” she hisses, gritting her teeth. 

He pauses on the other side of her desk, taking a seat on one of the office chairs. “I just thought it would be rude if I came to Riverdale and didn’t make myself known to you, you know, considering the restraining order…” 

Betty can feel him on her skin, his smug smile even when she blinks. She tries to keep the sickness from her voice, not wanting to anger him. “That’s the point of the restraining order, you’re not supposed to make yourself known to me.” 

Trev chuckles, shaking his head. “Oh Betty, you’re so funny!” he laughs manically. “I’m in town for a while, I’m working on a case with the ATF…” 

She doesn’t say anything, still aware of the distance between her fingers and the pen she’s willing to plunge into his skin if necessary. “What does that have to do with me?”

“We’re going to take down the Southside Serpents. They’re going to be gone for a long, long time. So, you tell me what it has to do with you.” 

Betty thinks of Jughead. Wishing he were here now and would randomly pop into her office. She thinks about Trev’s new case and what it might mean for Jughead and the club. As much as she knows that the Serpents are no good, she can’t bear the idea of Jughead being locked up for a long time, just as Trev is promising. “Nothing,” she mutters. “It has nothing to do with me.” 

“Good,” Trev grins. “I worry for you, Betty. You know everything I’ve done for you is only to keep you safe.” 

“Get out,” she whispers, screwing her eyes shut. “Before I call security.” 

Trev doesn’t argue, he doesn’t fight at all. He just gets up slowly, leaving the room in one swift movement. 

Betty slumps down into her chair, grabbing the pen that laid on her desk, she clutches onto it tightly. Trying to take a few steadying breaths, she feels tears streaming down her face, unable to control them. 

She feels her anger building inside of her, her fists clench and she throws them at her desk, pushing the files off, trying to hold in a scream. Scrambling for her phone, she scrolls the names until she finds Jughead’s. 

She doesn’t call him. But she needs him. She knows she does.

* * *

Gladys watches a cutlass drive through the yard of Whyte Wyrm, pulling up to the car yard section of the snake pit. Jones-Swan Automotive was already full, they couldn’t take on another car for another week. But after seeing Miss Betty Cooper driving it, she knew Jughead would make space for the cutlass in JS. 

Gladys couldn’t understand why Miss Cooper would want to move back to Riverdale. She made it pretty clear when she left all those years ago, leaving her son for heart-dead that she wouldn’t come back here. It was a promise, and Gladys knew Alice Cooper well enough to know her daughter would be like her and keep her promise. 

She was pretty, she’d give the Doctor that. She’s got better with age and that wouldn’t help Jughead at all. Gladys was worried that the one girl that stole his heart would only tighten her grip on him. If they couldn’t see it, she definitely could. 

And she needed to stop it. 

The Good Doctor was not a good match for her son. He was to be the Serpent King one day and he wouldn’t be able to take that throne if he was running away back to Chicago to live a simple life with Betty. 

As much as she hated the junkie, at least she was born in the snake pit too. She’d let Jughead rule and she’d do it without complaint. Toni would let Gladys’s son be the man he was destined to be. 

Betty finally gets out of the cutlass and Gladys sees her son come out of the garage, throwing his rag over his shoulder. “Hey! What are you doing here?!” she hears him ask Betty as he walks towards her. 

Gladys moves closer to the pair, leaning on a car just a couple down from the cutlass, pretending to be messaging on her phone, she listens in to the conversation. 

“It needs a tune up,” Betty laughs. “It’s been down in the garage of the house for I don’t know how long, but she doesn’t run as smooth as she used to.” 

“I’ll make sure the boys don’t touch it,” Jughead tells her, looking through the window into the car. 

“Archie will do,” Betty replies. 

Jughead nods. “Yeah, better him than me.” Gladys can tell the conversation is easy. It didn’t matter how long it had been, Betty had slipped straight back into his life like she had never left. Jughead carries on. “You want me to take you back to work while I get Arch to take a look?”

Betty shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I’m going home, I’ll just catch a cab…” 

“No!” he replies quickly. “No way…” he looks around the yard, “Here, I’ll ask my mom. She’ll take you.” 

Gladys looks up from her phone, tucking it back in her pocket. “What’s that, baby?” she pretends to not hear. 

“Betty needs to head home, but she’s leaving her car here. Can you take her?” 

Gladys can sense the discomfort in the Doctor. Keeping her smirk small, she nods “Of course I can, baby,” she plants a kiss on Jughead’s cheek. Walking past Betty, she heads towards her own car. “Come on, Doc.” 

She can hear the hesitation in Betty’s hum but she follows behind Gladys anyway. “Thanks, Gladys,” Betty says as she approaches her car. 

Betty throws her bag onto the seat first, Gladys sees it fall open as she waits for her to get into the passenger's seat, noticing a small handgun half hidden under the contents of the bag. Betty finally slips into the car, grabbing her bag and putting it on her lap. 

Gladys keeps her amusement to herself. “Still at Elm Street, darlin’?” she asks. 

“Yeah, I am.” 

So the Good Doctor wasn’t so good after all, Gladys thinks.

* * *

Jughead, Mad Dog, Sweet Pea and Reggie sit in the blacked out van in front of the Poisons club house. “That’s it there?” Jughead says, pointing to a shaggy dog sitting at the front door. “That’s what you want?”

Mad Dog nods. “Yeah. I’ve met it. It’s a good dog.” 

“Oh yeah?” Sweet Pea starts sarcastically. “Good dog is he? Pays his taxes?” 

Jughead rolls his eyes, settling into the seat in the back of the van. “I don’t want to be part of this.” 

Jughead will never know how he gets dragged into his brothers hijinx. Or why he’s sitting in a van, trying to figure out how to kidnap a dog. But, here he is. Listening to three of them decide how they’re going to get it in the van without the Poisons finding out. 

“You go and do it!” Mad Dog says to Reggie, kicking him with his boot. 

Reggie grimaces. “Ouch! You fucker!” 

Sweet Pea just leans back in the seat next to Jughead, putting his hand behind his head. “If you two pussies are scared, I’ll go and get the dog, but one of you will need to sort it out first.” 

Reggie and Mad Dog exchange glances before Reggie pipes up. “Yeah, okay, I have a plan.” 

_“You_ have a plan?” Jughead says with amusement. “I gotta see this.” 

Reggie doesn’t wait. He throws himself out of the van and bolts towards the dog. The dog gets up and walks away but Reggie continues following it until they can’t see him anymore. 

“What if the Poisons get him?” Mad Dog asks. “I can’t see that idiot anymore.” 

Jughead laughs. “Imagine being held hostage by a girl gang, I can think of worse things.” 

“Amen brother,” Sweet Pea agrees. “Wish they’d come after us more than the Ghoulies do.” 

Reggie slams his hands on the window of the van. “Sweet Pea!” he hisses. “It’s done!” 

“What did you do?” Sweet Pea asks, looking out the window before following Reggie outside. 

“Drugged the dog. Should be asleep now.” 

Mad Dog groans, rubbing his face. “You knocked the fucking dog out?!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Sweet Pea hisses back into the van. “We’ll be back with the dog.” 

Jughead watches the two of them sneak away in the dark. Closing his eyes, he rests for a while, wishing that for once, he’d have a normal night that might conclude with some sleep. His conscience never lets him rest. It just weighs too heavy all the time. 

Before he can drift off, he can hear barking followed by fast paced footsteps sprinting towards them. “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” Sweet Pea shouts. 

Mad Dog swings it open and Jughead watches from inside. The dog was frothing from the mouth, running so fast, it just misses Reggie as he flies through the van door. 

Sweet Pea screams though, barely making it to the van. Clutching on to the van door, he twists and contorts until they see the dog is latched on to his ass. Managing to kick it off, the dog falls to the ground, knocked out cold. 

Sweet Pea scrambles into the van, his hand moves to his behind and back, blood smeared on his hand. “What the FUCK did you give that dog?! I thought you had given it sleeping pills!” 

“It should have passed out!” Reggie argues. “I gave the dog like three grams of crank!” 

Sweet Pea’s face drops. “You gave the dog crystal meth!” he snaps, punching Reggie’s shoulder. “You just turned it into the fucking Hulk!” 

Mad Dog leaps out of the van, picking up the knocked out dog, he puts it into the trunk of the van. “Let’s go before it wakes up!” 

The speed away with the newest member of the club knocked out in the back. 

* * *

Jughead’s mom had been running A Taste of Riverdale since he was only a kid. For all her flaws as the Outlaw Wife, Riverdale seems to turn a blind eye to it when she’s paying for the biggest night of the year for the town and fundraising money for charity along with it. 

Jughead watches his mom kiss his step father’s cheek and they both giggle in the Spring air. He loves seeing his mom happy, and Edgar too. Things had been rocky amongst the entire club for a while now, watching them enjoy each other’s company was a breath of fresh air. 

Archie, Veronica and the kids walk up to where Jughead was sitting outside of a food truck. Veronica takes a seat and a few of Jughead’s fries as she sits down. Veronica was one of his best friends after being forced to hang out together since they were young, but after Archie’s two year stint in prison, their friendship never recovered. She blamed the club, but she blamed him more. He was supposed to protect Archie and he couldn’t. 

“I’m glad you came out, V,” he tells her. He ruffles both Ellie and Freddie’s hair and gives them his fries before chucking them a twenty dollar note. “You two go and hassle Nanna Gladys for a while, see if she can give you guys any more money to add to that stash, huh?” 

Veronica stands up but before following her kids, she turns to her husband and Jughead. “Family only stuff today, okay?” she warns. 

They both wait for Veronica to walk away before Jughead speaks again. “Dilton’s here.” 

Archie nods. He understands what Jughead is implying. Jughead had organised for Dilton and Archie to sort out their differences. Even though Jughead couldn’t have protected Archie from going to prison, he can right the wrongs that were done to Archie by Dilton. Dilton was the only one who could have protected Archie the day he was arrested. He was there with him and he fled the scene, leaving his brother to face it alone. 

Jughead points Dilton out in the crowd and Archie’s eyes bead. As they scan the crowd, Jughead spots Betty. He moves from the table, patting Archie on the back, he begins to walk away. Leaving his brother with his thoughts, he decides to head to Betty. “You tell me what you want to do about Dilton, Arch.” 

* * *

“Hey you,” sounds from behind Betty and she can’t help but smile. 

Jughead is behind her and for the first time in a while, she sees a genuine smile. Not one clouded by the fear that his son might not make it. Not hiding behind the worries of the club. He’s smiling and he’s smiling at _her_. 

His jeans are torn, his boots are scuffed and his Serpents kutte is still on him, proudly, even when he’s surrounded by the people of Riverdale. But right now, she doesn’t care. She’s just as happy to see him as he is to see her. 

“Your mom still puts on a good family day,” she says, looking around at all the activities going on. 

“I think she loves A Taste of Riverdale more than she loves me,” he laughs. 

Betty laughs too, but she knows that’s not true. Gladys Jones loves nothing more than her beloved son. “You helping out with it too?” 

“No, not really,” he replies. “Arch is supposed to be doing the fireworks later so that'll be cool… If I’m around to see them.” 

Her smile drops just a little. He didn’t have intentions on staying which means he wouldn’t be able to stay with her. “I hope you’re around to see them,” she mumbles. 

Jughead tilts her head with his fingers, his smile so close to her lips. “I only want to be around to see you, Betts,” he whispers. He places a soft kiss against her smile. “I still can’t believe you’re back.” 

Sometimes, Betty can’t believe it either. He kisses her, surrounded by a crowd of people as if there wasn’t ten years in between of him not kissing her at all. “Jughead,” she murmurs. “We shouldn’t be doing this…” 

“Doing what?” he asks, putting his forehead to hers, their noses touching. So close, but yet so far. 

“Whatever this is,” she breathes. 

“I just really, really fucking missed you, Betty,” he replies in a whisper. “So much, I couldn’t breathe…” 

“JUGHEAD!” they hear being shouted over the masses of people. “GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!”

Gladys Jones summons her son, just as she always does.

And just like that, he’s pulled from Betty’s heart just as he always is.

* * *

Jughead walks into the town hall. The sound of pounding flesh is both therapeutic and anxiety inducing. He loves the sound. It’s the sound of control, but it doesn’t mean he likes it.

Archie’s fists are bloody but so is his face. His lip is split open, there’s a split on his eyebrow as well but now, he has Dilton on the floor, Archie’s fists caving in his skull. 

Jughead’s presence makes them stop and Dilton’s face, though bruised, bloody and blackened, still manages to force a smile. “Hey, Jug,” he says with a slur. 

Archie hops off Dilton, making his way to the hall’s bathroom, both Dilton and Jughead follow him too. “You guys sort it out?” Jughead asks. 

Both of them nod, running taps, they wipe their faces clean. “I miss it, man,” Dilton says with a mouth full of blood. “Everything. I want back into the club.” 

Archie gives Jughead a sideways glance before giving him a hidden wink. Jughead takes on the cue. 

Dilton still wears his serpent tattoo on his back. The one he was supposed to remove when he betrayed his brother and his club. 

Not letting on, Jughead replies. “I’m sure you do.” 

“What can I do to get back in?” Dilton begs. “Archie and I have sorted our differences. The Serpents were my only home. My brothers. When I left Archie to get stung, I was only thinking about my kids not having a dad.” 

“My kids didn’t have a dad for two years,” Archie mumbles, but Jughead shoots him a glare. 

Archie will get his revenge.

“Come on over to the Whyte Wyrm,” Jughead says, faking a smile. “Maybe we can talk to Ed…” 

“Thank you!” Dilton says, throwing his arms around Jughead’s neck. “I promise I won’t let you guys down.”

Jughead wishes he felt more. He feels like he should. He was setting a man up that he once called his brother. 

And now he’s looking at a dead man walking. 

* * *

He left Archie to set up the fireworks otherwise Archie would have to answer to both Gladys and Veronica and Jughead didn’t know which woman was worse. 

Sitting at the bar of the Whyte Wyrm, he gives Mad Dog a look to tell him to get ready. He gives one to Fred who walks slowly out of the bar, heading towards the workshop of JS and then his final look goes to his stepfather who finds it hard to contain his absolute delight of what was about to happen. 

Dilton knocks beer bottles with Edgar before sighing with relief. “It feels good to be sitting in here with my brothers. I’ve missed this so much.” 

Joaquin cringes against the neck of his beer bottle and Fangs forces himself to make a noise in agreeance. Sweet Pea stands up. “Want to see my new Stinger?” he asks. 

Dilton nods, raising his bottle into the air. “I call bullshit, you don’t have a stinger!” 

“Come, check it out,” Sweet Pea coaxes. 

Dilton follows behind Sweet Pea and so do the rest of the crew. Edgar and Jughead fall back. “You sure I’m not gonna pull that shirt off and see nothing on his back?” Edgar warns. 

“Got the word from Archie,” he replies. “There’s a snake on his back that wasn’t blacked out or removed.” 

They get into the workshop and Dilton’s faced with no stinger. “Where’s the bike?” he laughs. 

Jughead looks around at his crew. Everyone’s faces are fallen and deadpan. He can smell the fear coming off Dilton already. 

Edgar stands tall. “Take his shirt off.” 

Dilton cowers into a corner, looking at Joaquin and Fangs as they approach him. “No! Shit, no!” they rip his shirt off. 

As clear as day, the Southside Serpent patch is still on his skin. “What do we have here?” Edgar taunts. 

Dilton breathes loudly and shakily, eyes darting everywhere. “Please, Jug, I can explain.” 

Jughead stands silently. The betrayal to his brother, to Archie, to the club made Jughead’s burning rage deep inside of him flare up. He has no sorrow for Dilton. No sympathy. 

All he has is a fire that he wants to unleash.

“You’re supposed to get that removed when you’re exiled, Dilton,” Edgar continues. 

Jughead spots Fred standing in the distance, sharpening a knife. Satisfaction grows on the old man’s face as he watches his son’s betrayer cower with fear. “I kept going to the parlor, I was going to get it blacked out but I couldn’t - it’s all I have!” 

Edgar just chuckles. “Fire or knife?”

The room falls silent except for heavy breaths coming from Dilton. “What?” he stammers, fear growing in his eyes. 

“Fire,” Edgar repeats. “Or knife.” 

Dilton struggles against Joaquin and Fangs, kicking his legs, trying to tear his arms from their grasps. Finally, he gives up. “Fire,” he mumbles with defeat.

Joaquin and Fangs drag him, his legs giving out beneath him, to the frame where they keep their machinery. Hooking his right arm up with a chain, Jughead offers Dilton a bottle of whiskey, putting it in his left hand that he throws back, taking as much in as possible. When he’s done, they chain his left hand to the frame too. 

Mad Dog’s eyes almost change as he sparks up the blow torch. Almost in a trance as he watches the flame spit out and how it glows as it approaches Dilton’s skin. 

Jughead looks at Fred who watches the scene unfolding in front of him. No feeling. No shock, He’d seen more than all of the crew put together. 

Edgar stands leaning against the wall as he watches. 

Jughead looks on, sparking a cigarette and taking a drag while he listens to the sound of Dilton’s demise, thinking about his father’s manuscript and if there were any words his father had to written down to describe the feelings he felt when it came to his brothers and their deception.

Jughead makes a promise to read his father’s words and find out for himself.   
  
  


…

  
  
  
  


_With the older I got, I realised that with age did not come wisdom. It instead brought a hardness I thought I would never feel. I feared nothing, I was shocked by nothing. Nothing got a reaction out of me anymore._

_Age brought a tiredness in me that meant I wasn’t my true self. I didn’t want to be hard and tired. I wanted to be me._

_The one thing that still came to me with age was the inevitability of death. It was the one thing I could rely on._

  
  
  
  


_..._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 Preview: 
> 
> He’s snapped out of his thoughts when he feels a boot digging into his rib cage, looking up at the person standing on him, he’s met with a woman. “Jughead Jones, I believe?” she asks.
> 
> An officer behind him yanks him up by the wrists, stumbling around before finding his footing, he spits on the ground in front of her, his snarl unable to be contained on his lips. “What’s it to you?” he snaps. 
> 
> She gives him an amused smile, pink lips curling up on the side. She tucks her hair behind her ears before offering him her right hand. “Agent Grundy, ATF,” she announces before pouting, mocking him for his hands being tied behind him. “No handshake I guess…”


	5. life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been like 8 months. Huh. I really am one of those terrible people.   
> *TW: Attempted Sexual Assault

_**Life** _

* * *

_ When faced with fear, the normal person runs. Our club is run with strict codes. Stare fear in the face. We told ourselves we were both the Devil and our own God. It got to a point that staring fear in the face meant nothing. There was no fear anymore.  _

_ We were fear. And that, son, was when walking the line of justice and injustice became shaky.  _

_ We were the ones, that when faced, people ran from.  _

  
  
  
  


_.... _

Jughead hears the breath being knocked out of Mad Dog's body closely followed by his own. Archie’s yells of;  _ “Hey, hey! HEY!” _ are heard throughout the Whyte Wyrm, chasing after two officers that are hacking into the wall that has the mugshots of all the Serpents members framed and on display. 

Jughead looks over at Munroe, both slammed onto the floor, cheeks flush against the cold tiles and their hands tied behind their backs with cable ties. It didn’t matter how prepared they were for the raid, the adrenaline still pulsed through him, trying to swallow down his anger. 

He hears the crashing going around them. Bottles falling to the ground, glasses shattering everywhere. The sound of their falling bikes coming from outside is what hurt the most. He can almost see the agents with their steel capped boots pushing their bikes to the ground. Paint jobs being scratched, badges being torn off. 

Somehow, Jughead can still hear Archie which means he hadn’t been restrained. “YOU CAN’T GO IN TH-” his shouts are cut off. 

Before he knows it, Archie is on the ground face first next to Jughead on his left. He watches Archie cough, blood spilling from his mouth. “You okay, Arch?” he asks his brother. 

Archie just nods. “They were in the clubroom, pulling down all our shit.” 

“Mmm,” Jughead replies simply.

He continues listening to the scene around him. More shattering, more yelling, more high pitched cackles from the authorities. They’d be all but burning down the Whyte Wyrm, he knows it. He can feel it in the air as his home crumbles around him. Somewhere in the place, he hears a wall being busted, more crashing around him. 

It didn’t matter how much he told himself that this would inevitably happen. He wanted someone to pay for this. 

Jughead squeezes his eyes shut, trying to drown out the noise, reminding himself that they wouldn’t be caught with anything. Mad Dog and Sweet Pea had made the run to Toledo and everything that they needed safe was there. 

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when he feels a boot digging into his rib cage, looking up at the person standing on him, he’s met with a woman. “Jughead Jones, I believe?” she asks.

An officer behind him yanks him up by the wrists, stumbling around before finding his footing, he spits on the ground in front of her, his snarl unable to be contained on his lips. “What’s it to you?” he snaps. 

She gives him an amused smile, pink lips curling up on the side. She tucks her hair behind her ears before offering him her right hand. “Agent Grundy, ATF,” she announces before pouting, mocking him for his hands being tied behind him. “No handshake I guess…” 

Jughead spits again, glancing down at his brothers on the floor. “Do you officers have a warrant?!” he asks, jerking back and forth trying to break free from the officer that still holds him from behind. 

“Oh, you mean this?” Agent Grundy asks, waving a piece of paper in front of him. “Sheriff Keller wasn’t so hesitant to help us out with this… I guess he’s not on your payroll?” 

Jughead pulls again, another agent comes into view, this time a male who can’t seem to keep his eyes off Jughead. The agent drops a box of items at Jughead’s feet that makes him want to headbutt him to the ground. “Found something else, Agent Grundy,” the male says. 

She drops down into a squat, rummaging through the few items the Serpents still have of FP’s. His various mugshots, part of his original, old and worn kutte, the bottle of the last beer he drank with the club and other bits and pieces. She handles them with no regard. 

Jughead watches on, a rattle in his throat, a twitch in his fists behind him. Keeping his mouth shut, he tries to stand as still as possible, no matter how much he wants to lunge at them. He doesn’t want a reason for them to lock him up. 

“Well, well, well,” the male agent starts, moving closer until he’s in Jughead’s face. “This is the famous snake pit, huh?” 

As he approaches, he holds a hot coffee. Jughead is tempted to knock it into the agent's face but instead he smiles back. “Yeah,” he says, faking friendliness. “What’s your name?”

The agent stands, straightening his shoulders. “Agent Trev Brown.” 

“You a motorhead, Trev?” Jughead asks, his grin is malicious. “want to join us motorcycle enthusiasts?”

“You’re going away for a long, long time, Mister Jones,” the agent says. Before Jughead can comprehend what he was doing right in front of him, he sees the coffee spilling out into the box of his father’s belongings. 

Trev smiles as he slowly pours the coffee, Jughead lunges, but he’s restrained by two more officers. 

Trev has a death wish, Jughead decides. 

* * *

Betty looks through the glass window, she can’t contain her smile. She would stand here watching all day if she could. 

Jughead holds Nathanial with a tenderness she hadn’t seen in him for a long time. She watches him stroke the fine, transparent hairs on his head and whisper words against his son that she can’t hear. That was the Jughead she remembers. The one she fell in love with as a blinded, sixteen year old girl.

Checking Nathanial’s chart, she takes it into the room with her and she’s greeted with Jughead’s smile. “I was going to ask you the next time I saw you if Ed and mom could come in to see the baby later. Ed’s eager to hold his grandson…” 

Betty never had much to do with Edgar, but judging on the absolute pride he has in his stepson, she knows he’s just as dangerous as the rumours say he is. But, if he was anything like his wife, family comes first. Betty could never deny the love they have for their family. 

There was so much, it would make anyone cower with fear. 

“Of course,” Betty says, nodding. “I’ll still be around this evening if they want to pop in.” 

Jughead simply smiles, looking back down at his son. “I never thought I’d be here, you know…” 

Betty takes a seat next to him, placing her hand on Jughead’s knee as she looks at the father and son. She never thought she’d be here either. She always thought that the life and home she made in Chicago would be there forever. She promised she’d never come back to Riverdale. Never see Jughead again. She spent years thinking about it, trying to get him out of her system, her heart. It had taken so long, but she did it. 

And now she feels him in her all over again and it was hard to ignore when the beating in her chest as she watches him with Nathanial, when he smiles so sweetly, when in these quiet moments, he reminds her of when they were young. 

“I didn’t think I would be either,” she tells him honestly. 

He doesn’t look up but his shoulders soften and so does the expression on his face. “It makes me wonder, when I see you, just how differently everything would have been…” 

Jughead doesn’t need to say more. She reads him loud and clear. She wonders too how their life would have played out if he had gone with her, if she had stayed here with him. 

They sit in comfortable silence, she keeps close to him, her thumb moving slowly on his knee and his son remains calm in his arms. Betty notices movement beyond the glass, looking up, she’s met with the uneasy grin of Trev Brown who stares in for only a moment before slowly walking away. Betty’s skin feels like it’s splitting until she’s brought back with the sound of Jughead’s voice. 

“Fucking bastard,” he hisses, slowly putting his son back into the hospital bed. 

Betty freezes. Trev must have kept his promise, getting in with the Serpents. Jughead recognised him. She didn’t know what to feel. All she knows is that it’s fear. But fear for what Trev would do to Jughead? Or fear for what Jughead would do to him. 

Most of the fear was for the fact that Trev was in the hospital and she needed to go home at some point. 

She inhales deeply, begging for some sort of strength to speak. “Do you know him?” she asks instead, cursing herself for not telling Jughead the truth.

“Yeah,” he sniggers, tucking his hands into his jeans. “He came in, raided the clubhouse. He’s out to get me. I bet that’s why he’s here now.” 

“Right…” she answers. 

She watches Jughead flutter around the room, tucking his son into the sheets, straightening out the teddy bears the club had dropped off over time. “I can’t believe my son won’t be out until he’s three months old,” he mutters but Betty barely hears it. 

Her mind is stuck on Trev and how he’s in the same walls as her. That he was in the same walls as Jughead, at the Whyte Wyrm. Before she can stop herself, she blurts out; “He’s here for me.” 

Jughead pauses, a look of confusion written all over his face. “What?” 

“The agent,” she says, running out of breath. She inhales sharply again, fingers playing with her stethoscope. “Trev Brown. We dated when I was in Chicago, he was possessive… I have a restraining order out on him but he’s here for me, and I think he knows we’re connected.” 

Jughead’s face contorts. Exhaling through his nose, he runs a hand through his hair before storming out. 

She watches the snake on his Serpents patch slither on his back as he busts through the doors of the hospital. 

* * *

Jughead walks through the police station without anyone batting an eyelid. Tom barely looks up from his coffee cup but Kevin does, standing up, he puts his hands in the air. “Woah, woah, woah,” Kevin says, looking at Jughead sideways. “What’s happening, Jug?” 

Jughead takes a breath, trying to centre himself. The agent might be shady, but it had nothing to do with Kevin. He was doing his job and that’s all that matters. 

But the agent had to go and to save Kevin the hassle of a bloody clean up, he’d do the right thing by him and by Betty and tell the Sheriff the truth about the agent in town. 

“Kev,” he says calmly. “The agent is out to get Betty.” 

“The agent?” he asks, confused. “Grundy?” 

“The guy,” Jughead spits, still reeling from the revelation that the agent was with Betty. “He used to date Betty, she has a restraining order out on him. He came to Riverdale to try and hunt her.” 

Kevin stiffens his back, closing the door of his office behind Jughead, he leans in closer. “Who told you this?” 

“Betty!” Jughead snaps, struggling to keep his cool. “And I’m telling you because you’re my friend and you’re Betty’s friend too. But if you don’t do this on your side of the law, I’ll tidy it up on mine.” 

“Shit!” Kevin hisses, banging his fist on his desk. 

Jughead leaves without saying a word. 

He’s not so sure he can keep himself from tidying things up anyways.    


* * *

Gladys had pulled all the guns she had stored in old shoe boxes out of the wardrobe, sorting through them, she found one she thought would fit the Doctor’s delicate hands perfectly. She was a surgeon after all and though her hands were small, she knew they would have a lot of strength to them. 

She would give her something with a bit of guts. 

Gladys wasn’t sure why Betty would need a gun. Or if she even knew how to use it, but she finds herself with a small handgun in her bag, something a little stronger than the one that was hidden in Betty’s purse, driving to Elm Street to deliver it. 

Gladys wasn’t sure about Betty, but over the last couple of months with watching her look after her grandbaby, with watching her snap back and show strength, Gladys thought that she showed some potential. 

And if she needed protecting, Gladys would at least provide the girl with a decent gun. 

Pulling up to the outside of Betty’s house, she sees Betty on the other side of the road, hopping out of her newly serviced Cutlass. Jumping out of her own car, Gladys calls out to her. “Hey!” she shouts. “Pretty girl, you going inside?” 

Gladys is amused at the shocked look on Betty’s face. Watching the girl eye her sideways, she walks across the street. “Yeah, are you okay, Gladys?”

Gladys smiles, shaking her handbag in front of Betty. “I got a couple of things you might want. Woman to woman and all that shit…. You gonna let me in?” 

Betty keeps eyeing sideways. “Sure.” 

Gladys follows Betty inside, she looks around. “Your mother always did have good taste…” 

Betty chuckles, setting her bag of scrubs on the dining room table before turning to Gladys. “What do you want, Gladys?” she asks straight. 

She keeps looking around at the trinkets that belong to the Coopers, knowing full well that one of those fancy looking decorative plates would cost a pretty penny. Turning back around to look at Betty, she’s impressed at the glower the young girl gives her, at the way her hands are plastered to her hips. She can tell Betty doesn’t trust her. 

And she  _ likes _ that. The less people Betty trusts, Gladys thinks, the tougher she is. 

Maybe she  _ is _ strong enough after all. 

Gladys goes to her hand bag, pulling out a couple of guns she sets them on the table. “These will kick a bigger punch than that old thing in your bag, Doc.” 

* * *

Jughead sits at the table in the clubroom with Edgar. Running through their plan with the Ghoulies, they finally agree on something. Jason Blossom will deal firearms to the Serpents and sell to the Ghoulies while the Ghoulies maintain their drug trade. 

The door bursts open, slamming against the wall with Reggie out of breath, hands on his knees as he’s hunched over. Edgar barely pulls his eyes from Jughead to look at Reggie. “You better be here to tell me Hell’s frozen over with that entrance, Reggie…” 

Reggie can barely force out the words through trying to breathe. “I was keeping watch on your house, Jug. That Agent, the dude, the one who fucked you over, he was there, brother, I couldn’t get to him, it was overrun with ATF Agents.” 

Jughead can barely hear the rest as Reggie forces out more words. The venom that pools at the back of his jaw flares up, his fists clench. There’s a buzzing at the back of his skull that fuels his rage.

Edgar throws himself up, going over to Reggie, he places a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for warning us, brother.” 

“He was in Nathanial’s room, he pushed everything over, trashed the fucking room! The baby’s shit is everywhere!”

“Did you follow him?!” Jughead asks, gripping into Reggie’s shoulders with both his hands, spittal flying. 

Reggie nods. “He was going to Lloyd’s for a haircut, he was there about five minutes ago.”

Jughead storms outside, kicking his V-rod into gear. 

* * *

He knows Lloyd can see him approaching his barber shop. When Jughead enters the shop, Lloyd has a small smile, stepping back from the ATF Agent’s head with his clippers. 

Trev Brown has his eyes closed but as Jughead flies towards him, hands going straight for his neck, his eyes widen, fear evident in his look. “Call someone!” he shouts to Lloyd but the old man shakes his head. 

Lloyd’s loyalties lie with the people he knows. 

Jughead doesn’t stop to listen to Trev’s pleas. His anger is white, blinding and furious. It’s static and deafening. He holds the man by the scruff of his neck, leaning over him, Jughead hisses. “You go into my house. You abuse my things. You destroy my son’s room?”

Trev’s face finally falls into a menacing grin, eyes darkening before him. “You’re an outlaw. You’re a murderer and you’ll never,  _ ever _ get Betty Cooper.” 

Jughead doesn’t care for his petty words but the sound of Betty’s name out of his mouth sets him off. 

Throwing a punch against the agent’s jaw, he finds that his fist makes a pretty sound against his skin. The next three only sound better once the air is knocked out of the Agent’s lungs. A fourth is met with blood that is ruby red from his split skin. 

Finally, Trev manages to force his way up, landing a punch on Jughead’s face this time, but again, he gets Trev by the neck, throwing him against the glass window that shatters loudly around them. 

Trev lies on broken glass, skin all battered and bruised, the red of his blood running down his face but Jughead kicks him in the ribs, watching him curl up in pain. 

“Don’t you ever, ever,” he spits, pointing his finger at the body on the ground. “Mess with me or my family again.” 

Jughead turns to Lloyd, giving him a sympathetic look to apologise for the mess. “See ya Lloyd,” he mumbles. 

Lloyd nods. “I’ll send the invoice to your mom, Jug.” 

* * *

The darkened form sitting outside of her house was easy to make out. She’d seen that same form sitting outside in the cold many times when she was young. Most of the time back then, he was a melancholic mess or a caffeine induced night owl. 

This time he’s a man who’s worn, leaning on the building with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. 

He watches her approach and she can make out the outline of his smile under glowing street lights, lifting her hand to wave, he waves back. “Betts,” he says. 

The street lights don’t hide the bruises on his face, or the split in his lip. She frowns at him when she meets him, lifting her hand again, she traces the injuries softly with her hand. “Shit, Jug,” she murmurs, concern evident in her voice. “What happened?”

His chuckle is not humorous. It’s dark and worrisome. “Paid a visit to Agent Trev Brown,” he says with a sigh. 

“Shit!” Betty breaths, her heart beginning to race. What if he gets locked away? Just like Trev had said would happen. She moves her hands down Jughead’s body to his own, grabbing them tightly, not wanting to let him go. “And?!” 

“And then I went to Kevin. And he and Tom have sent him back to Chicago. He’s not allowed to work on the Riverdale ATF case and he won’t be back… I saw him leave town, Betts. You’re safe now.”

Betty opens and closes her mouth. Lost for words, she can’t do anything but hold Jughead’s hands tighter. 

Dropping her head to his chest, she lets the tears run as he strokes her hair. She feels him kiss her hair gently, holding her closer. Never letting her go, just like she didn’t want to. “You’re okay, Betty,” he whispers. “You know I’d never let anyone hurt you.” 

Rain starts to fall and he rocks her on the spot, keeping her close. Just like he always did. 

She feels safe. She feels protected by the only man who could ever look after her the way she needed to be. 

He always told her he couldn’t live without her. Now she understands, because she doesn’t think she can live without him either. 

* * *

“The House of the Dead?” Reggie asks, approaching the clubhouse of the Ghoulies. “That’s a bit over the top, don’t you think?” 

Munroe rolls his eyes. “We call ours The Snakepit,” he shrugs. “Not that different I don’t think.” 

Jughead follows behind them with Edgar as they walk up the steps to the entrance. Two of Malachi’s men look over them, patting them down but for what reason? None of them are sure as they still walk in with all their weapons. 

Malachi sits at his table in his clubroom, lifting his arms, he greets them as if they’re old friends. “Serpents!” he calls. 

Munroe, Sweet Pea and Fangs flank to Edgar’s side who takes a seat on the opposite side of the table to Malachi. “Haven’t been into the belly of the beast since your old man ran this joint,” says Edgar, taking a look around. “Gotta say, it hasn’t changed much.” 

Malachi just glares, watching every movement from every one of the Serpents. Jughead keeps his eyes just as close on Malachi’s men too, feeling the atmosphere chop and change with every passing second. 

He knows his blade is probably the quickest to work with, he knows for a fact these guys are short of firearms.

Malachi starts. “You’re here to talk business,” he announces. “Ironic considering you guys killed one of my men.” 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jughead says, stepping forward. He ignores the seething glare from his stepfather. He would not stand for being accused for making the first move. “You guys,” he says, holding his arms up to all of the Ghoulies surrounding them. “Burnt down our warehouse, you came onto our turf and sought us out to attempt an attack and now you’re starting with us killing one of your men?!” his hand flinches, just brushing on his blade before rethinking the move. 

Malachi nods along, leaning back in his chair nonchalant, he agrees. “Yeah, well, that did happen.” 

Edgar scowls at Jughead before turning back to Malachi. “If we’re going to talk business, we’ll have to put that in the past just as good businessmen do.” 

“Bit late to say we’re good businessmen,” Jughead mutters.

“And what do you propose?” Malachi asks. 

“My son and I,” Edgar begins. “Thought of a good solution. We maintain firearms with Jason Blossom, we sell to you if needed, you take hold of Jason’s drug trade.”

Before Malachi can answer, there’s a disturbance in the background. “I’m with them,” he hears coming from Archie who stumbles in, two Ghoulies attached to his arms. 

“Let him in!” Edgar calls but he shoots another glare at Jughead and he knows he’ll have to pay for this. 

Archie gets to Jughead’s side. “Sorry, bro,” he mumbles. 

Jughead holds back a snarky response, instead he just looks at Archie, trying to let him know that he fucked up. Malachi finally speaks. “Okay, sounds fair. I guess we’re in business.” 

The room fills with cheers and patting of backs. It had been a long time since the Ghoulies and Serpents agreed on anything, but times were changing, Jughead could feel it in his bones. 

Edgar gets up from his chair, giving Malachi a hug before turning to his crew. When he gets to Jughead, he leans in, hugging his son too. “I don’t trust Archie, son,” he whispers. “And it’s on your head…”

Jughead looks over at his brother, fearful for him, fearful for himself. Fearful for the reason why Archie was late to the biggest meeting of the club. 

* * *

Things had been quiet for a while since the Serpents and Ghoulies finally made peace. Jughead had worked overtime at the mechanics, catching up on things at JS Automotive.

Sirens echo through the yard and for the first time in a long time, Jughead was enjoying the peace and quiet. “Fuck!” he groans, hearing them get nearer. 

Mad Dog comes out of the bathroom and Jughead looks over at him, watching his face first light up with confusion then turn into a grimace. “Fuck!” he groans. “For real?” 

He knows Mad Dog is thinking the same thing as him.

Cops. Again. And this time, they don’t know why. 

Getting up off the ground from under a fancy BMW, he looks out to the road but instead of being met with the police, he’s met with a speeding Ambulance coming down the driveway. On closer inspection, he can see Reggie’s smile, beaming through the front window as he drives the Ambulance in. “I got us something!” he calls out the window. 

Beeping his way further down the driveway, he ends up parking the ambulance just outside the garage. Jughead rolls his eyes, throwing the towel over his shoulder, he walks towards the driver’s door of the ambulance, swinging it open, he pulls Reggie out by his arm. “What the fuck is this, Reg?” 

Reggie keeps grinning, straightening up his shirt, he looks pleased with himself. “These go for a lot of money, you know.” 

“Yeah, Edgar agrees, making his way to the ambulance, looking it over. “They sure do… I’m sure the fucking government would be just pleased to buy a stolen ambulance from us.” 

“Well,” Reggie replies slowly, scratching his head. “We don’t have to sell them to the government…” 

“Oh?” Edgar snaps back, whacking Reggie gently over the head. “We don’t? Who’s going to buy it then?”

Reggie continues standing there, thinking about his next move when Jughead notices Sweet Pea limping into the garage with Mad Dog and his new dog chasing after them. “You get that fucking mut away from me!” Sweet Pea snaps. 

“That mut has a name you know,” Mad Dog whines, bending down to pat his dog. 

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea agrees.  _ “Dead.”  _

Jughead just shakes his head. Though his crew were deadly and unforgiving, he’s reminded of exactly what they are in trueness. A bunch of idiots. “Get rid of the ambulance, Reg,” He calls over his shoulder, getting back to working on a Stinger. 

“I thought you could ask Betty if she wants to buy it,” Reggie calls after him but Jughead just shoots him a look that makes him cower. Jughead keeps looking at Sweet Pea who clutches at his ass. “And what’s wrong with you?” he shoots at Sweet Pea. 

Sweet Pea doesn’t even hesitate, right in the middle of the garage, he unbuckles his belt and drops his pants, turning around, he shows the crew a bite mark. From the dog when they stole him, all festering and infected. “The fucking mut is gonna be the reason I die!”

Mad Dog drops his mouth, glaring at Sweet Pea. “His name is Hot Dog and you will respect him!” 

“He tried to bite my ass off, how the fuck do you expect me to react!” 

Jughead gets a little closer, beading his eyes at the wound on his Sergeant at Arms’ ass torn between laughing and grossed out. “You need to get that fixed, bro,” he warns. 

“Got no insurance, I can’t go to the hospital!” Sweet Pea groans. 

Jughead thinks for a moment before coming up with a plan. “I’ll go to Betty’s and see what she’ll give us. You hold up, okay?” 

The excuse came easily. He needed to get away from the boys, but he also needed any reason to see the woman he was falling for all over again. 

* * *

Even when she’s not on duty, she still flutters around like she has a million things on her mind. Jughead leans against the wall, his arms folded with an amused look on his face. He could do this forever, watching Betty while she’s busy. Her brow furrows and her concentration is so apparent as she thinks. 

She hasn’t changed at all. 

“I think this might be enough to get by,” says Betty, handing Jughead a bag full of things she deems fit to fix Sweet Pea’s ass. “You might need to get your mom to help out because she’s the only person I would assume would have any idea how to clean a wound out.” 

“Why?” he laughs. “Because she’s done this before?”

Betty gives him a dubious look, piling some more gauze on top of the bag in his arms. “No, because she’s a mom and mom’s are good at this shit.” 

“You have a point, Betts,” he agrees. 

“I don’t know what’s going on, Jug, but I hope it works out okay.” 

“Same here,” he agrees. 

They stand in silence for a moment. Jughead always thought himself good with words. He’d talked himself out of situations no one would have ever made it out alive from. He had been leading the club alongside Edgar since he was young, always able to come up with the right plans that benefited his club. But he was never good with the words that told anyone how he felt. He could never tell Betty just how much he loved her back when they were teenagers. And he still struggles now. 

Putting down the bag on the dining table, he slowly reaches to take her hands in his. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. 

“Why?” she asks, tilting her head. 

He doesn’t know why. He knows every reason why. For everything, for nothing. For the ten years in between and the months since she had been home that he never acknowledged. He ignores her question, letting instead the tightening feeling in his chest finally take over him. 

He needs to release. 

“When I heard you were home, I spent nights wondering what would happen if we made this work. Every single possible way that you and I could be together…” 

There’s an obstruction in his throat, he thinks it feels like fear, like pain. Like aching for the woman in front of him that he’s not so sure he can continue to live without. Betty’s cheeks turn read, she lets her chin fall, her hair falls in her eyes but he keeps holding onto her hands. She smiles weakly. “What did you see? When you were wondering about what would happen?” 

Jughead sighs, a small smile on his lips that’s laced with longing. Uncertainty. Love ache. “This, exactly what it is,” he murmurs. “You, unsure about everything, me not being able to keep away…” he falls silent for a moment before speaking again. “You, thinking about what fucked up dangerous shit I’m up to… me apologising for it constantly.” 

“It feels like we’ve had this same conversation before,” she whispers. 

“Because I’m the same fucked up guy you left at the bus station ten years ago, I’m the same fucking idiot in the same kutte,” he sighs, picking up the bag from the table, Jughead decides he needs to leave before it gets too hard. “But you’re not. You’re the doctor who went out and made things better for herself…” 

Jughead goes to the door, opening it slowly, he doesn’t look back but he hears her voice behind him. “No you’re not, Jug,” she replies. “You’re a loving man who’s now a father. It might be the same kutte, but you’re not the same guy.” 

He knows part of her is right. He’s a loving man who’s now a father. But he’s only loving to one person, and she’s standing there, looking at the same snake on his back as he walks away. 

* * *

Betty watches Jughead ride away as she looks out the window of her house. Before she can turn around, she feels her body being yanked back, a hand covers her mouth as she attempts to scream and her breath is instantly out of her body. 

Her skin feels like it’s tearing, a panic ghosts over her body as she’s met with Trev’s eyes. “NO!” she shouts but it’s too late, Trev drags her into her bedroom. 

Her legs and arms stop moving, the fear takes over her body as he looks at her, dragging his eyes over her body. “Shush, shush,” he soothes too gently and quietly for Betty to listen to. “I’m not going to hurt you…” 

She’s not sure. Part of her believes him, she knows he loves her and he wouldn’t do anything to harm her. But she’s scared of something snapping in him. Just like it has before. She tries to inhale through her nose, knowing that keeping calm will keep  _ him _ calm and she might be able to buy some time to make a plan. Slowly, she convinces her muscles to ease as he forces her onto the bed. “Please, just let me go,” she begs in a whisper, hoping her quiet voice might ease him just enough to let her go. 

Trev laughs, throwing his head back. “Do you want to tell me why you left Chicago?”

“I-uh-” she stammers but she’s cut off, flinching when he speaks. 

“Was it because of me?” 

Betty nods slowly. “That’s why I left it’s because…” she doesn’t want to tell him the truth, the begging in his eyes is unhinged, she can tell nothing will sink in without her having to pay for it. 

“This is your opportunity for you to be honest,” he says with a crazed smile. “Everything out in the open, we can rebuild our relationship!” 

There’s nothing that makes Betty feel sicker than the way he says  _ ‘our relationship’ _ . Swallowing thickly she agrees to do what he says. “I was just so scared, you were a bit possessive,” she forces out. 

He laughs again. “I know I can be  _ intense _ ,” he says. “I’m a bit much sometimes but I’m willing to change, Betty. I’m willing to work to get back what we lost.” 

Something flares up in Betty. The anger. Having to try and compromise with Trev, convince him that she’s cooperating makes her face burn, wanting to break free. “We don’t  _ have _ anything, Trev,” she snaps. “We haven’t  _ lost _ anything - we never  _ had _ anything!” 

Before she can move, she feels the sharp whip of his hand against her cheek, making it burn and throb. Without thinking, she stands up, aiming to get to the door but again, she feels his hands on her, the rising feeling of disgust takes over her mind. 

But suddenly, she’s blank. 

* * *

Betty can hear the beat of a song, it repeats over and over again, it cuts in and out as she comes to, unable to keep her eyes open. Her mind shakes and turns. 

Quickly, she realises she still has her clothes on, but she’s lying on the bed with Trev’s body bare, his shirt is off, but his pants are on but his back is to her. She assesses herself, she feels okay, but her head still throbs. Turning her head to look at Trev and spots his gun on the bedside table.

Trev turns towards her when he realises she’s awake. Betty tries to keep the fear from her eyes, instead, she gives him a forced smile, trying to keep things quiet, keep him calm. He walks over to the bed, crawling on the bed next to her, he has tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Betty,” he cries, pushing his head into her neck. 

She strokes his head as she tries to think of what to do next. Coming up with a quick plan, she holds back her own tears as she decides how to execute it. “I know,” she hushes. “I know…” 

“I just love you so much,” he sniffs, feeling his tears on her skin. She tries not to recoil, repulsion runs through her but she knows she has to be strong. Act quick. He kisses her on the mouth, forcing his way through. Not accepting the kiss, she gives herself away and she feels his body tense, the anger and frustration in him shows it’s face again. 

Becoming more forceful, she thinks quickly again. “No!” she says quickly, getting a reaction out of him again. She takes another breath, summonsing the courage to go on. “Not like this,” she acts. “Make love to me, please…”

Trev buys it when she slowly dots kisses on his cheeks, his jaw, letting every part of her skin touch him when she finds the strength. She breathes slowly through her nose, trying to keep it together. Finally, she gets him on his back. 

Continuing her kisses, she waits until she sees him relax, letting his body fall deeper into the bed. She never takes her eyes away from his, waiting for the moment that he closes his eyes. One more kiss on his naval, his eyes fall shut. 

Betty had never moved so fast. Reaching quickly to her bedside table, she takes hold of his gun. It’s only a split second until he realises what’s happened, and he moves too, pushing her body off his while she holds the gun but in a mess of arms and legs, she pulls the trigger, offloading onto his stomach. 

“FUCK!” he screams. “YOU STUPID BITCH!” 

But she leaps off the bed, holding the gun in front of her, she watches Trev fall to ground before scrambling back up. Clutching his stomach, she can see blood pouring out of him but she keeps the gun steady in her hands. “Call an ambulance!” he yells. “HURRY UP!”

Betty nods, keeping the gun pointed at him, she picks up her phone, calling the first number that comes to mind. 

* * *

She’s shaky as she paces the living room, gun still in her hand, her bedroom locked only by a chair wedged under the door handle. She sweats, it runs down her temples. 

Betty hears the front door click open and as soon as Jughead walks through the door, she throws herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I didn’t know what to do, I was so fucking scared, Jug, I didn’t mean to - “ 

“Where is he?” he asks, his lips in her hair. “Show me.” 

Betty leads him to her room, this time, she feels bile creeping up her throat but the lightheadedness is gone now that Jughead has her hand. He kicks away the chair, opening the handle, he peers in. “Shit,” he says quietly, looking back at her. 

“THIS WAS YOUR PLAN?!” Trev shouts. “YOU CALLED YOUR BIKER BOYFRIEND?!”

Jughead does a better job at ignoring the yells than she does, he sees no reaction in him, only his concerned look over her, waiting on her move. “I don’t know what to do!” she almost yells. 

“You can call an ambulance, this is your first offence and it’s in self defence because of your restraining order. He goes away for a year or so, but after that, he’ll be back to doing this shit again…” 

Betty shakes her head, trying to rid herself of the thought of him out and coming back for her. “No, no, NO!” she ends up screaming. “I can’t go through this again!” 

The gun is still in her shaky hands, rattling against her. Trev starts up again, he’s curled on the floor, holding onto his gun wound but his face is screwed up with anger. “YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!” he keeps screaming. “ONCE A BIKER WHORE -” he doesn’t get to finish his words. 

Jughead snatches the gun from Betty’s grip, storming over to Trev, he unleashes three bullets straight into his brain. 

Betty can hear screaming, but it doesn’t feel like it’s coming out of her own mouth. A coldness washes over her, she drowns in it as she watches the blood pool around Trev’s head. 

She watches Jughead fall to her bed, dropping his head into his hands as the gun that just killed a man in her own home sits next to him. The screaming stops eventually, but the coldness still drowns her. 

Slowly, she makes her way deeper into her room. She looks at the dead body on the floor, half hanging out of the ensuite of the bedroom. She feels nothing when she looks at the blood, nothing when she looks at the body. She feels everything when she looks at the man sitting on her bed. 

At some point, she sees him stand up from the bed. Jughead stands before Betty covered in blood. The body lies lifeless on the floor but the anger in Jughead is still seething, spilling out of him. 

Betty’s body shakes. She hadn’t seen life escape a person so quickly, she had never seen death take its place so eagerly. He was in control of that. He made this. He was the creator of death, he determined someone’s life. 

Part of her is scared. Intimidated by the way his eyes only darkened slightly after he fired that shot into the body’s temple like that. Back when it was a living person. 

The other part loves him even more. He’d kill for her. There was no end to what he would do. 

He speaks. “Betty?” 

But before she knows it, her lips are crashing against his and her body begs to be even closer. All she feels is love. 

She falls onto the bed and watches Jughead’s body move as he removes his kutte, then his shirt. Her heart races for all of him to be on all of her. 

Eventually, they move as one. She calls his name as he breathes her in and nothing but the sound of their skin can be heard over the same music that plays in the background that the dead body had put on when he was still living. 

Jughead whispers in her ear how much he loves her. They crash together and her eyes meet his, red comes to view in the background as she realises she can’t live without him. “Make love to me,” she begs. 

Sunlight cuts through the gaps in the curtains, blood leeches into the threads of the carpet, Betty’s nails dig into Jughead’s skin. She feels everything and nothing. She feels sixteen again, she’s aged a lifetime. 

Nothing brings her joy and anguish, but pain and pleasure, both ache and ease like the man inside her. 

He calls her name as the sound of the skin echoes through the room. “No one loves you like I love you,” he promises with his teeth digging into her flesh. 

She believes it. Every single part of him fills her. She’s never felt so complete. 

…

  
  
  
  


_ It was never in my vision to have the club become what it was. What had started with good intentions was eventually built on the blood of others. Each and every ruthless stone added to the pile was just another piece of the footpath towards the next bloodbath and by the time I realised what my world had become, I was just wading in a river that I couldn't escape.  _

_ Blood was the water that fuelled us.  _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I came back after finding out I was nominated for a Bughead award and people actually like my writing. Im sorry if you're one of those few people and I left you waiting this long. I love you regardless.


	6. flesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The usual. I appreciate everyone that reads this fic and makes it all the worth while.   
> Finally, some weak ass smut.

_**flesh** _

* * *

_ The older I got, it showed in the way of losing my humanity. I lost the ability to to tap into the normality of being human. If anyone showed their human flaws to me, I had to make them pay. By money or blood, there was no getting away from me without paying the price.  _

_ I would look into the mirror and I didn't see myself. I saw a person who’s relationships all came with a cost. My brothers weren’t my brothers, their flaws made them pay. I took all I could get from them, all those who wronged me.  _

_ When you look into the mirror, son, I don't want you to see the man that I saw. I don’t want you to lose the compassion you hold for people, including your own flesh and blood.  _

_ I don’t want you to look into the mirror and the man who's staring back is me. _   
  
  


_ … _

Jughead’s hands are still covered in dirt. He dug a shallow grave just on the border of Greendale, he spat on it for good measure and rode all the way home to Betty. 

He didn’t like the shakiness in her. He could feel the fear radiating off her but still, she was calm. He was always interested in the reaction of a person when they see death for the first time. Not the calm, inevitable kind of death. 

The kind where you have the control, you decide the fate of a person. 

Some people panic, it makes them sick to their stomachs and they never quite recover. Others revel in the power, always wanting to push it to the next level as far as they can. 

He had held Betty’s hair back from her face three times as she vomited into the toilet. A guilt pulses through him but he knows, in his heart of heart this was the only way. One more fucked up insult towards Betty that would have come from that agent’s mouth was going to result in nothing less than bloodshed. 

His spirit should count himself lucky for Jughead showing mercy in only letting go of three of his bullets.

Jughead lies in the soft sheets of Betty’s bed. She’s curled up next to him, hair splayed across her white sheets and her head resting on his shoulder. He feels peace. The calm. A feeling he hadn’t felt in so long. The bodies of all the women he’d spent nights with, Serpentines - the women who want to be shacked up with a Serpent, but aren’t ballsy enough to do the Serpent dance - all come to mind. All empty feelings that left him feeling sick to his stomach. All women, just there at the right place, the right time. Nothing that ever left him feeling the way he does now. 

He kisses her gently on the forehead. Every time he makes a move, he thinks about how he had done the exact same things years ago. Soft touches on her skin, everlasting kisses. He loves the feeling of reminiscing on the past. He loves the feeling of loving her again.

He notices the blood still on the carpet that she had tried scrub out earlier. Two days have passed and he knows he’s a dead man when he gets back to the club, but he couldn’t leave Betty here alone. Slowly, she stirs next to him. “You’re still here,” she mumbles, still half asleep. 

Jughead still strokes her hair, wondering when she’ll realise that he never wants to leave her. “Of course,” he answers. 

She moves into his side, getting as close as possible. “What is this?” she asks. “You and I?” 

Jughead inhales deeply. It’s everything and anything, he thinks. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. “It’s whatever you want it to be. You know how I feel about you,” he tells her. “I love you so much.” I can barely breathe, he thinks to himself. 

Betty nods, placing a kiss on the corner of his lips. “I love you so much too…” 

Standing up from the bed, leaving dirt from under his nails on white sheets smeared with blood, he runs his fingers through his hair, forcing himself to take a proper breath of air. The rooms caves in a little, pink chiffon adorning windows, morning sun turning Betty's legs pink as well. His old beanie sits lopsided on her mirror that’s shattered and the glass sits fallen around several bottles of bleach. The inhale burns his nose. The iron of blood, the clinical smell of ammonia. 

He closes his eyes for a second and his peace is broken by her fingers touching his back, fingertips following a snake, feebly tracing a scar made by Malachi, pretty and clean from his sharpest blade from shoulder tip to his hip. 

They stay like this for an entire moment of their time. With his back to her while he stands, with her sitting behind him with a scared hand on Jughead’s skin and worried breaths fluttering out of her lips. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to see any of it. He feels it in his cracking bones and out-of-beat heart. 

Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper in her room on Elm Street, forever stuck in a cycle. 

The morning, he realises, gives no fucks. It’s not the beginning of another day. A fresh start. 

It’s the classic snake eating its own tail - a repetitive world he built for them. 

Jughead reaches to the bedside table, pulling out a cigarette. Lighting it up in a room he knows he could never have done it before. Alice Cooper, in any other moment in time would be busting down the door, throwing the entire pack into Betty’s toilet and flushing them down. Now the smoke makes patterns with the billowing chiffon curtains, twisting and turning in the morning breeze. 

He finally turns around, Betty’s collarbones glow in morning sunlight, lines formed in her skin from the light shining through shutter gaps. Her hair is down and so is every wall they built to hide themselves from each other.

She holds her own strength, he thinks to himself. And she’s every single little piece of my weakness. 

He sits down next to her, silence drowning the both of them. Bleach now mingles with the smell of her hair and the dried blood on the sheets hardened patches of the soft material that he feels nervously with one hand, smoke still sitting between his fingers if the other.

Jughead feels the bed shift when Betty stands, moving to between his knees. The sunlight moves with her too, one side of her body lit up in flames, the other shadowed and darkened. Her hands find their way to his neck, nails dragging along the thin skin while he inhales again, closing his eyes. Feeling everything that he hasn’t felt in what seems like a lifetime. 

Her touch holds everything in it, love, passion, pain, sorrow. Love, he thinks over and over again. Love, love, love. 

At some point, his fingers fall to her hips. Gripping onto her flesh, all of his strength on the dips in her hips that he swears were made perfectly for his fingers. He’s a man parched when he feels her fall into his lap. The way she bites her lip and her head rolls back, praying to the ceiling makes him beg for more. 

_Love, love, love_ , he thinks as Betty rolls her hips, feels his chest,  _ let’s _ him  _ love _ her back. His patience is tested, his hunger drawn out and his thirst is never quenched when his entire world is in his hands. “Do they ever love you like I do?” she whispers, tongue in his ear, lips wet and willing. 

His fingers leave their home on her hip, his cigarette still burns as he grabs her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I love you so much, it’s going to get me killed.” 

For only a second, she’s off his body, he drops his boxers to the floor, the still burning cigarette lands in the pile too. He loses a breath through gritted teeth when she sits on top of him, letting herself edge onto his cock bit by bit with her smile still between her teeth and her head still thrown back to the ceiling in prayer. 

Salty, desperate kisses scatter anywhere he can land them. On the skin above her navel, rough on her hardened nipples, in the form of his teeth at her neck. “Did they ever feel like this?” she murmurs. 

Like thunder crashing, like prayers in the dawn. “No one ever feels like you,” he promises. 

Betty’s nipples harden when they brush Jughead’s chest and his tongue can’t help but love the taste of her. The curtain her hair makes as it sways at either side of their faces brings them closer, deeper. 

She strokes up and down his cock, tightening with every come down. She whimpers when he meets her, thrusting upwards, burying himself as deep as he can to get every single bit of her. Answering every single one of his desperate prayers. He grabs the back of her neck, wrapping his fingers in her hair to bring him closer to his lips again. First he’s gentle, all-in-love-longing and soft. Lips dancing on her skin, loving all of her. 

Then his teeth drag on the thin skin of her neck again, testing his power. He’s powerless, his teeth grate, his nails dig. How can a man starved resist? 

Jughead feels the shaking in Betty’s thighs, the quivering through her body, all of her flesh shaking as it succumbs to every part of greediness in him. Love, love, love, he reminds himself. All wrapped up in pretty little love. “How can we ever be apart, Betty?” he hisses, feeling his cock twitch inside of her that she responds to with a breathy sigh. “When every single fucking part of us is made for each other?”

Betty’s grip tightens on his shoulders, bringing herself down harder on top of him. We belong, he knows. Stars have aligned…

His hands brush over teeth marks he’s left behind. Sticky heat bounces off the walls and the smell of bleach is almost hidden as they slap harder, move faster. Every fucking bit of them fills the room. 

She locks eyes with him, making his cock harder, making her breaths quicker, her eyes squeeze shut and the sound of the headboard becomes more steady, rhythmic,  _ harder _ .

Lightning strikes, passion fires, pressure builds and his temples throb when she swears to him; “I love you, Jughead.” 

He pushes harder, more love, more fire, more prayers, more burning. He’s almost up in flames when she comes down harder on him one more time, begging him one more time. 

Jughead’s back arches and this time, he looks to the ceiling for one more whispered prayer. Just him, Betty, the world they’ve set on fire, Everything is so fucking close, so fucking sweet, so fucking in love, so fucking  _ them _ . In their own fucking world. “Jughead,” she calls in the end. 

He comes, the world shatters and the prayer from her lips and the shaking of her entire body marks the end. 

She stays on top of him, kisses marking his chest. 

His heart buckles. 

Finally, it caves in. 

“It’s just you, Betty,” he whispers in her hair. “You’re everything.” 

* * *

Gladys has no patience when her son drops off the grid like this. She half expected to see him three whores deep in the back room of The Maple Club but Penelope had said he wasn’t there and Penelope was not a liar. 

Turning up to Archie’s house, she was met with the icy reception of Veronica, telling her straight that if Jughead had turned up there, he would have been shown right out. Gladys let her know that if she wanted to, she was more than welcome to come over to the club's family dinner at her’s and Edgar’s. Veronica didn’t take the offer, but Gladys didn’t blame her. Being an old lady of the club came with a lot of pain, usually it calms down and all their lives settle back into the mundane swing of things, but Miss Andrews never caught a break. 

Gladys allows one woman the courtesy of her sympathy. 

She was down to the last stop, pulling up at Elm Street, Gladys has Sweet Pea at her side, riding alongside her for back up. 

Banging on the door, it’s only a few seconds before she hears a gun click and the doors unlock. “It’s your mother!” she snaps, banging on the door again. 

Her son swings the door open, looking at his mother and his brother next to him, the look of panic is spread across his face. “Is everything okay? Betty’s not here…” 

Gladys shoves his shoulder, partly for putting her through the stress of not knowing where he was, partly for being here of all places. “Where the hell were you?” she hisses. “The club needs you and you’re out here chasing the doctor!” 

Jughead’s eyes change before her. Just like his father’s, she thinks. He gives off the same energy, the same anger. “She’s not the  _ ‘doctor’ _ mom,” he seethes. “She’s Betty and she needed me…” 

“For two fucking nights!” she snaps back. Sweet Pea cringes, taking a step back to hide a little down the hall. 

Jughead keeps his frame in the door, not letting her even take a glimpse inside. “I’m not having this conversation with you,” he warns her. “I’ll be back at the clubhouse when I’m done doing what I gotta do.” 

Gladys shakes, pursing her lips, she shoots a look at Sweet Pea but he just shakes his head. “Not getting involved,” he tells her. 

Gladys takes another look at her son, letting her disappointment show. “When you get home, baby, you better have a better excuse than getting in the Doctor’s panties for your crew.”

Her son just sniggers with the same arrogance of his father. “It’s none of your concern.” 

She spins on her heels, dragging Sweet Pea by the scruff of his neck. Gladys knows there’s only so much a mother can do before their baby boys have to stand up for themselves as men. 

* * *

It had been a long time since Betty had stepped foot in the Whyte Wyrm. It was like it never aged, everything seemed to be in the same place as they were ten years - or even longer - she can’t remember the first time she went there or how old she was. All she remembers was the young boy who looked up to the men in leather like they were Gods. 

Following closely behind Jughead, she keeps her equipment bag close to her. “Thanks for doing this, Betty,” he tells her. “Sweet Pea’s been complaining of his ass for weeks now…” 

“Weeks!” she says in shock, glaring at him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He gives her a weakened look. She knows why. He didn’t want to drag her into club business. And she doubts Sweet Pea has the insurance to cover a hospital visit. “He’s just in here... “ 

Opening the garage door, Betty steps in. Men she had seen popping in and out of Riverdale General to visit Nathanial over the last few months are scattered all around Sweet Pea who’s already lying on his stomach. She feels the stares of everyone around her, watching her move through the garage. Walking up slowly to her with a swagger in his step is their President, Edgar opens his arms to her and embraces her with a smile. “Heya Doc,” he says deeply. “Thanks for coming out here on short notice.” 

Betty laughs awkwardly, unsure of where to look or at whom. “Not as short as I would have preferred, Jughead let me know the injury was sustained a little while back so I’m hoping there’s not too much damage to his -” she’s cut off. 

“His ass cheek?” Reggie cackles from a corner. “His ass cheek may have sustained some damage.” 

“Damaged goods, baby,” Mad Dog laughs alongside him. “That’s rotten beef right there!” 

Sweet Pea groans from the table he’s lying on, “Fuck off the both of you!” He gives Betty a weak smile when she stands at his side, looking from his butt to his face. “Don’t get too used to this, Doc,” he teases.

Betty shakes her head. “Sweet Pea,” she begins. “This is really, really infected. I’ll need to wash it out and even do some stitches. You’ll need antibiotics.” 

He sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t have the money to get that shit!” 

She slides gloves on, snapping the latex against her skin, thinking quickly, she comes up with a solution. “I can get some but it’ll only be enough for a week tops…”

Fred Andrews takes a step forward from where he was leaning on his bike, pushing his nasal cannula against his nose, he gives Betty a grin. “I’ll help the kid out, Doc,” he replies. “I’ve got a shady dealer just north of Greendale, we’ll take the ride up and see what she can get us…” 

Though the sentiment was sweet, the professional side of her rears its head, she wonders just how shady these drugs and medications are, but as she’s wiping purulent from a gang member’s wound from a dog bite, she realises there’s not much any of them can do. “That would be good, Fred,” she nods. “He’s gonna need something for this kind of break down…”

Jughead comes up behind her, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, he leans into her ear. “Thanks for doing this, Betts,” he says quietly. 

She pushes her cheek against his lip as he kisses her softly. A loud;  _ “Ooooh, Jug’s in love,”  _ sing songs through the cold garage from Reggie and various claps can be heard around the room. 

She feels all eyes on her, just like in the operating theatre, when she begins her stitches. It’s not until a swinging light that’s being held by Mad Dog almost hits her that she realises the gravity of what’s going on in here. This was definitely not the operating theatre. Everyone surrounding her wears Serpent kuttes, some still wear the cuts and bruises of their latest business deals and a barely washed blood stain is still on the floor where Reggie stands with a smile. 

“I think that will do it,” she says, snipping the thread that’s holding Sweet Pea together. He takes a sigh of relief and Mad Dog inspects her handy work before flicking it, earning a shriek from Sweet Pea. 

“What the fuck did you do that for?!” Sweet Pea yells, trying to reach for Mad Dog while he still lays on the table but Mad Dog simply moves out of reach, laughing in his face. 

Jughead gives her another kiss but she holds up her hands, waving her fingers in the air. “Where can I deal with these?” she asks. 

He points behind him. “Just go in there.” 

She washes her hands in the basin in the back room, splashing water on her face, she tries to hide the stray tear that escapes her. 

The men she’s with are all just as bad, as dirty and as fearsome as the man who killed another living human in her house. And they’re breaking bread out there without a care in the world. 

And she was a part of that world. 

* * *

Archie Andrews feels like he has a permanent weight on his shoulders. It nails him to the ground, it keeps his head pounding with something he rarely feels. 

_ Fear _ . 

He paces the veranda of his home. His home holds all the good memories of his childhood all mixed up with the bad ones of his adulthood. Life was simple when he and Jughead were kids. They were simple when he and Veronica fell in love on this very doorstep. 

But the life that was built for him destroyed that, just as he was destroying everything around him. 

He can hear the excited screams of his children, he can hear Veronica telling them to calm down but with love and excitement in her own voice. He wonders if this was what it was like when he was locked up for two years. If maybe they were better off without him. 

Archie knows his wife doesn’t want him to live this life. But loyalty was everything. Just as his own father was FP Jones’s best friend and right hand man, he knows he is all that and more to Jughead. Jughead is his brother, and Archie was nothing if not loyal. 

It doesn’t matter how much his heart tells him to leave, for the sake of his wife, for the sake of his children, his veins are too deep rooted in Southside. There cannot be one without the other, he doesn’t have a family if he doesn’t live for Southside. Southside gives him the stability to provide for his family. 

Archie sucks up the courage to face his family, to be the strength they need. Going inside, he doesn’t take his kutte off at the front door. Instead, he makes his way to the kitchen, flicking the switch of the kettle to turn it on. The money weighs just as heavy in his pocket, ten grand for a gun delivery he made to the Ghoulies with Mad Dog.

His wife stands at the sink, scrubbing furiously. “Where have you been?” 

He knows he doesn’t have to answer. She knows exactly where he’s been and what he’s been doing and it breaks his heart. “I’ve got something for you,” he tells her. 

Veronica spins on the spot, tears brim in her big, brown eyes. It doesn’t matter how long he’s known her, when tears begin to spill, she looks exactly like the girl he fell for when they were fifteen. He hates it. “You can’t keep doing this to us, Archie,” she begs. “You’re going to get caught again and for what?! For you to be locked away, for our kids to not have a father!” she takes a breath, closing her eyes, she shakes her head. “If you keep doing this, we’re going to have to leave…” 

Archie wishes he feels more, but in his heart of hearts, he wonders if that’s the best thing to do. For his kids. Let them leave, get away from people like him. “If you hated it so much, why didn’t you leave the first time I got locked away?” he asks, trying to keep the fear from his voice. 

“Because our kids were babies!” she hisses, tears spilling down her cheeks. “But now they need a father, and they can’t have one if you keep getting into trouble, Archie!”

With every word she speaks, his heart hurts. There isn’t anything on this earth that Archie loves more than his kids. But this was his life and he doesn’t know how to do both. Not when everything he does is  _ for _ them. “I can’t keep working twelve hours in construction for shit pay, Veronica. This is the only way I know how to keep things moving. My loyalty to the club keeps me bound… If you don’t like it, then keep packing.” 

He watches the tears stream down his wife’s face. They fall in time with his. He hates feeling like the biggest asshole on the planet, but maybe it’s worth it to keep his family safe.

* * *

Toni looks great, Betty thinks. She looks healthier, she’s put on a bit of weight and for the first time in a long time, she sees an honest smile from her. Pulling the woman in her arms, Betty holds her tightly, she can feel Toni’s smile against her shoulder and she feels Toni hold her tighter as well. “You look great!” Betty congratulates. “You really do.” 

Toni pulls away, looking over Betty’s shoulder, her face turns into relief. “Wow!” she exclaims. “Look at him!” 

Both women turn to look at Nathanial, kicking and wiggling in his little bed. Just as his mother has returned healthy and thriving, he was too. Betty watches the tears of happiness fall from her eyes, she wipes them with the back of her hand while she watches her son. Betty feels for Toni. Despite everything she’s been through, despite what she did, Betty knows the blame can’t be put solely on Toni. She watches as Toni puts her hands to the glass, she can feel the longing coming off her. 

She knows that Jughead won’t be happy if he finds out that she let Toni in the room, but that was something she was willing to pay for. Seeing the heartache in a mother standing before her son, unable to hold him was painful. Before thinking it through completely, she turns to Toni. “Do you want to hold him?” 

Toni’s mouth drops and the surprise of the offer is apparent. Betty almost laughs at the excitement. “Can I?” 

“Of course!” Betty says, not even convincing herself. “Just don’t tell Jug, okay?”

Toni nods excitedly. “I promise.” 

* * *

Jughead rolls through Riverdale General with his head held high, he feels the eyes of everyone in the hospital burning him, but his son was coming home soon and there was nothing that was going to get him down. 

When he gets to the Paediatric ward, he swings open the doors and before him stands Betty and Toni. 

His heart stops for a moment. 

He couldn’t control the panic in him that was quickly replaced with relief. Betty smiles at him briefly before exiting the viewing room, giving him a nod to tell him that she’ll give them some privacy. The nerves kick back in when she leaves, part of him begs for her to stay but the worried expression on Toni’s face brings him back to what’s right in front of him. 

He takes Toni into his arms, burying his face in her hair, he tries to tell her that he’s there for her. 

Jughead feels her sobs and the sorrow he tried to bury deep inside of him comes back. He loves Toni, she was his best friend but it was never going to work. The sorrow he carries around for her is speckled with the love he still has. “I’m so sorry, Jug,” she cries. 

He keeps holding her tighter. “I don’t want you doing anything stupid over this shit, Toni,” he mumurs. “We need to keep you on the straight and narrow.” 

Toni sniffs, moving away, she wipes her tears with the hem of her t-shirt. “Everything is my fault,” she cries. “I didn’t even try…” 

Jughead shakes his head, grabbing her face, he wipes her tears with his thumbs. “We should have never got back together after you got out of rehab the second time. We were never good for eachother…” 

He can see the understanding in her eyes. She knows he’s right. They were never made for each other, always too much. Too much pain, too much fire. “I know…” 

“I wasn’t ready to try and settle down, I definitely wasn’t ready for a fucking kid. I hated that it happened and so I left you all alone.” 

“I think we both just wanted something that felt normal.” 

“Yeah,” Jughead sighs. “I think so too. Nathanial born with his stomach messed up, that’s all me, Toni. Don’t you wear the pain of that.” Toni breaks down a little more and Jughead continues to hold her. “Hey, he says, trying to smile. “Do you want to hold your son for the first time?” 

Toni sniffs again, cracking a smile. “I really do.” 

“I gotta say, T, he’s fucking perfect.” 

Jughead leads the way, happy to see a smile from her but she grabs his hand, pulling him back, she frowns. “I can’t keep secrets anymore, Jug. But Betty already let me hold him.” 

Chuckling, Jughead carries on behind the glass. “She’s too damn sweet for her own good,” he says. “Want to hold him again, then?”

Jughead pulls his baby out of the crib, kissing his soft skin, he holds him tighter for a second before handing him to Toni. 

Toni’s body is stiff, her arms are unsure of what to do but her face is softened, tearful and loving. Jughead enjoys the look on her, happy to see his messed up, little family together for the first time. She settles down on the chair and he follows, sitting down next to her. “He’s so amazing,” Toni whispers, placing a tender kiss on his cheek. “I can’t believe he’s okay.” 

“He’s a fighter,” Jughead shrugs. 

“Like his dad,” Toni replies. 

Jughead enjoys the peace and quiet for once, enjoying being with his friend again, spending time with his son. 

He looks up, out the window, he sees Betty looking in on them. He can’t pinpoint the look on her face, but it’s not as sweet as it usually is. She wears a sadness. But he’s distracted as he watches his mother approaching the window, just behind Betty. 

All he sees on her is  _ pride _ . 

* * *

Jughead watches Edgar puff on his cigar, not even meeting his eyes. “You know why you’re here, don’t you son?” 

He stops himself from rolling his eyes. Edgar was always menacing, always trying to draw out the problem. “Say what you got to say, Ed,” Jughead retorts. “Stop fucking around.” 

Edgar looks from Jughead to Sweet Pea. As much as Jughead loves his brother, Sweet Pea was Edgar’s little weapon. Always willing to do Edgar’s orders, no matter the price or the amount of blood spilt. “Archie’s a loose unit, son, and we’re going to do something about it.” 

Jughead sees red, flames creeping up his back. Slamming his hand on the table, he shouts. “NO YOU WILL NOT!”

Taking a deep breath, he watches Edgar’s face shift. “Archie hasn’t been straight since he got out of prison eight months ago!” he argues. “Veronica’s giving him heat and now it’s affecting the club. We have ATF riding our dicks right now and you know who’s going to bust first if Grundy keeps on us? Archie.” 

Jughead knows his brother. Though his heart rules before his head, Archie is loyal to the bone. Archie would tell him before letting anything happen. “Archie won’t give into the ATF and I know it. If you’re going to do anything, you run it past me first.” 

“I AM THE PRESIDENT HERE, NOT YOU AND  _ NOT _ FP!” his stepfather shouts, his face turning red. 

Jughead loves the rise out of Edgar, he knows he’s pissing him off. “I’m sure everyone would be pleased to hear a fucking conspiracy about one of our own brothers if anything happens, Edgar,” he snaps thickly. “Archie is one of our own and if you have a problem with that, then take it to the  _ fucking _ table for a vote!”

Sweet Pea sits in silence, cracking his fingers against his palm as he listens to the unravelling of his President and Vice President. Edgar speaks. “If Archie makes a deal, you best believe that will be on your head and said head will be rolling…” Before Jughead can fight back, his mom walks through the door. “Not now, Glad,” Edgar warns. 

But his mother walks in anyway, making her way to her husband, she puts a hand on his shoulder. “Waldo called. He needs you.” 

Edgar’s face falls, sighing loudly, he rolls his eyes. “For fucks sakes,” he complains. “It’s one thing after a fucking other.”

Jughead storms out of the clubroom, heading straight to the bar as he lights a cigarette but before the clubroom door shuts behind him, he hears Edgar’s order. “We do what we gotta do, Sweets, okay?” 

Before Jughead can exhale his second drag, his mom is behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “You okay, baby?” she asks. 

Turning around, he watches her. His mother would do anything for him, but he knows she’s torn between her son and her husband. “I’m fine, Ma.” 

Gladys nods, taking his face in her hands, she puts a kiss on his cheek. “You know everything that happens here is for you…” 

For some reason, Jughead doesn’t believe that at all. 

* * *

Edgar Evernever had tried his hardest to keep Waldo Jnr in line. He had made a promise to his father that he would, but just as Waldo Snr had broken his promises, Edgar knows he’s not too good at keeping his promises either. 

Banging on the door of Waldo’s apartment, he can hear the cries of Waldo on the other side but no movement to open the door. Edgar groans before kicking the door, letting himself in as it cracks the frame. 

Walking through the house, Edgar notices all the photos Waldo has up on the walls of his father. The kid sure loved his dad, if only he knew what a pathetic excuse of a man he was. He knows Waldo was too young when Waldo Snr passed to remember, but Edgar was here to remind him. 

On the floor of the bathroom, Waldo is curled up in a ball, his arm freshly shot up and his face wet with tears. “I need you,” he blubbers. 

Edgar can barely offer a sympathetic glance. Reaching down, he hauls the man up to his feet. “Get yourself together, man!” 

He knows Waldo is in another one of his spirals that again, he has to clean up. It was tiring to say the least and the guilt of keeping someone alive that was too much of a liability was getting to him. 

Waldo had to go, just like his father did. 

“Why didn’t my dad want me?” he sniffs against Edgar, but he lets Waldo drop to the ground, the frustration building in him. 

“I got a confession to make,” Edgar starts, fingers moving to his gun on his hip. “Your dad didn’t leave you, buddy. He was killed.” 

He enjoys watching the confusion spread over Waldo’s face. “What?” 

“Mmm,” Edgar continues. “He was killed because your father was a rat and couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He heard too many things when he worked in the garage, knew too much information and he liked to spread it. So he was killed…” 

Waldo’s sobs echo through the house, his solemn cries. “Why?” he cries, face screwed up in pain. 

“He worked on FP’s bike, Waldo. He knew too much about that fucking bike.” 

“The bike that FP died on?” Waldo asks, shaking his head. “This doesn’t make any sense!” 

But before Waldo could get more answers, Edgar draws his gun, screwing on the silencer, he moves fast, aiming it at Waldo’s temple. 

It’s quick, sharp and quiet. Just as Edgar likes it. 

Tucking the gun back into his pants, he looks at Waldo. “I didn’t want to kill him, buddy,” he tells the silent body. “And I guess that’s why I had to look after you. But your father knew too much about FP and that fucking bike for me to feel comfortable.” 

Edgar leaves the house, relief washing over him. 

* * *

Betty walks through her home, enjoying the comfortable quietness that runs through the walls. She can smell tobacco making its way through the windows that settles her. For once, she feels at ease. 

Her body still aches from Jughead’s touch all over her, the smell of his skin on hers. She makes her way to the balcony, looking through the open doors, she sees nothing but the soft light of the tip of his cigarette, the glow of his giant snake tattoo that cover his entire back, his form bent over, reading something that sits in his lap. 

This is what she prays for. The simplicity of a normal love. The nights spent together, not in fear but in  _ love _ . The normality of Jughead, in her space with no kutte on. 

But as he continues to read and she continues to watch, she realises he can’t ever get rid of that kutte. 

Because even when he doesn’t wear it, with the kutte off, that snake is forever part of him. Etched into his skin. 

  
  
  


…

_ I got to a point where I wasn’t sure what I was looking at when I stared at my own club. I trusted none. I hated all. Nothing was ever straight forward, there were secrets and lies behind everything. _

_ People who were supposed to keep us safe were the ones who had knives to our throats.  _

_ Family meant nothing and neither did my club.  _

_ I longed for an escape.  _

  
  
  
  


...

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7 Preview:
> 
> Walking into the darkened building, he can feel the eyes of the cartel all over him. He’s met with Donna Sweett who walks towards them, her smile menacing and trouble. “Oh,” she says, looking surprised. “The Prince himself came out to play…” 
> 
> Jughead cracks a smile, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “How you doing, Donna?” he asks.
> 
> “Better for seeing you,” running her eyes over the other two at his sides, her smile grows. “I’m lucky today, you brought your best boys.” 
> 
> “Only the best for you, darlin’” Jughead winks, dragging Mad Dog by the neck and Archie hurries at his side.


End file.
